


Hope Dies Last

by TheTimelessCycle



Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons)
Genre: Angst, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27574208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTimelessCycle/pseuds/TheTimelessCycle
Summary: ‘The Order will surely rip your soul to pieces’ Nari had said, and they had. They did. But he was Hisirdoux Casperan, and it wouldn’t be true to form if he didn’t somehow manage to botch up being wiped from existence too.
Comments: 104
Kudos: 99





	1. Top Ten Reasons to Avoid Temporal Accidents

**Author's Note:**

> So, it has been a good, sweet while since I last posted anything to an audience outside of my family and friends. This here is my attempt to shake off the rust and be active again, and hopefully get back into the habit of writing on a more regular basis once more. We'll see how that goes, and maybe I'll finish some of those requests/projects that have been on the backburner for far too long. 
> 
> A couple of free warnings before you start reading:
> 
> 1\. There is angst. This is me, there will always be angst, which will be peppered with comfort and friendship and all those great things this show brought to the table. I am a believer in happy endings, so provided we make it that far I will not leave you wallowing with a tissue box.
> 
> 2\. I'm not being super canon compliant here. The last time I wrote something for a fandom I spent hours researching, rewatching, and analyzing. Not this time. This time we are ad-libbing, and hopefully not completely self-destructing the canon whilst we are at it.
> 
> 3\. I have a buffer of chapters at present and will be spacing posting out to try and keep that. That being said, posting schedules and me have a complex relationship. I make no promises. 
> 
> 4\. Douxie does not deserve any of this, but I'm putting him through it anyway, because that's what we do to the best bois. 
> 
> 5\. It's been a rough year, guys. Take care, be kind, and stay safe.

**Chapter 1**

**Top Ten Reasons to Avoid Temporal Accidents**

* * *

It started as a dream.

He knew he was dreaming because just a moment before he had been pouring over a new spellbook, enduring Archie’s indulgent amusement as the fatigue of the day’s activities warred with the excitement thrumming through his veins. He must have been tireder than he realised, he reasoned, to have drifted off in the middle of studying every last detail contained within those precious pages. He was probably drooling on said pages now, and Archie was probably laughing at him. The traitor.

So he was dreaming, even if tonight’s nocturnal adventure seemed to be a departure from the usual fare. He was sitting in the midst of nothingness. Not dark, not light, just absence. Emptiness, yawning and deep, that swallowed all sound when he opened his mouth to speak. He could see clearly enough, despite the lack of light, except there was nothing to see. He didn’t know how he had come to be there, but he knew he was waiting, sitting still with a sense of quiet patience that would have had his master’s eyebrows climbing right off his head in disbelief.

The cold crept in slowly, brushing over his skin like a frigid breeze from an open window, closing about his wrists like icy fingers with a death grip. An uncomfortable sensation of heat sparked beneath his ribs at the same time, drawing his eyes downwards as he blinked in surprise. There were dozens of threads attached to his torso, red and blue lines trailing off into the nothingness. Morbidly curious, he tried to touch them. His hands passed through the mingled colours as easily as they seemed to have passed through him, not ending where they touched his skin, but stretching beyond what his eyes could see.

The first tug took him wholly by surprise, a flash of terrible pain making his sight white out as he threw a hand down to catch himself. The pressure eased in the next moment, though the threads remained taut. He had barely had a chance to regain his breath before they started pulling again, viciously hauling on something beyond the physical, as if they were trying to pry his spirit out of his body.

He toppled forward on hands and knees, submitting to the pressure in an effort to relieve the awful tearing sensation inside his chest, but it made no difference. He grappled to hold the bindings, to tear them away. His hand passed right through the threads again, as insubstantial as the part of him they seemed determined to claw free, deaf to his pleas to stop, immune to the magic he slammed against them in a frantic effort to halt their steady pull.

“Please.” He was sobbing now, the pain overtaking all else. He needed it to stop. It had to stop. It hurt, it hurt, it _hurt_. “Please, don’t...”

Pale green washed over him in a gentle wave, a bubble of safety that encased both him and the instruments of his agony. He drew in a wheezing breath, fighting to get upright as the soft touch of kind magic slowly enveloped him, the scent of old wood and ancient greenery as familiar as it was strange. There were flowering vines wrapping around his limbs, twining around his arms and curling in repeated circles about his waist. Their grip was careful but unyielding. He had only a moment of dawning horror to realise what was coming and try to prevent it.

“Wait! Stop!”

The vines wrenched him backwards, painfully fast. Perhaps it was meant to be kindness, salvation, but the threads still caught. He was torn to ribbons, pieces peeling away in strips like he was made of parchment.He felt the fracture of something that was never meant to break, a pain that went far deeper than any physical wound could. His magic flared in panic; A wild, desperate attempt to save himself from certain death.

Too late. Too late. He had already lost too much, and still they tore at him, taking more and more and there would be _nothing left_...

* * *

He came to shrieking.

This was a vast improvement on not awakening at all, a miracle he was not in any position to appreciate as he opened his eyes to find himself floating amidst a maelstrom of miscellaneous objects. The moment he came awake the magic gave out beneath him, dropping him like a stone to crash against the floor. He hit his head on the descent, a minor complaint drowned out beneath far more immediate concerns.

Everything hurt; A terrible, all consuming agony that bloomed outwards from his chest and set all his nerves alight. He knew he was screaming, knew the sound grating against his ears was his own piercing voice mingled with the shouts of others. The world was awash with vibrant blue and that was his fault too. He just didn’t have the presence of mind to stop it. He wanted to crawl out of his own body, except he was fairly certain that had already happened. Ice in his chest and fire in his veins and a broken voice screaming his name.

He could still hear the echoes. The voice was different now. Less of devastation and more of brimming alarm. Magic crashed against his own in a tidal wave of _calm_ that made the colours swimming before his eyes flash from blue to gold. He was being smothered, crushed beneath a weight that was meant as kindness, arms wrapping around him and pulling him upright. He cut his own screams off in a breathless gasp when the motion tipped excruciating pain back towards inescapable agony, a hand — his own — trying to burrow into his chest to find and destroy the source of his torment.

There was nothing there.

There was nothing.

He had failed.

He had failed and there was no fixing this.

The arm curled about his spine tightened, the hand to which it was attached gripping his waist firmly as he was pulled closer and tucked gently against the source of the voice now peppering his name through nonsense sentences that would have meant something at any other time. He could feel the vibrations of speech, hear a heartbeat thudding slightly too fast that was not his own, and belatedly realised that someone was gently running their fingers through his hair.

“It’s alright.” Clarity of thought was returning as the pain eased to a manageable level. Enough for hysteria to try to creep in in its place. “It was just a nightmare. You’re alright. You’re safe.”

He wanted to laugh; He wasn’t _safe_ , none of them were. It came out as a sob instead. The soothing words continued above him as the arcane light in the room faded away, his own magic wilting beneath the determined presence of another’s. He turned his head on instinct, hiding his tears in fabric and distantly hoping whoever’s shirt he was ruining right now wouldn’t mind too much.

His companion started rocking gently, humming a soft tune that was as familiar as it was wrong. He hadn’t heard that song in centuries; Not since the last occasion he’d spent time with Morgana, right before things started going horribly awry. It shouldn’t be possible to hear it again now, and certainly not from her.

“Breathe.” Oblivious to the fact she shouldn’t exist, Morgana continued to cradle him gently as they both knelt on the uncomfortably hard floor. He could feel her magic still drifting lazily over them, the calming enchantment she was weaving into her voice. “Just breathe, Douxie.”

It was easier to do as she said than question what was happening. He was absolutely exhausted, still aching, and suffering the fleeting remnants of a terror whose source he couldn’t quite remember. Focussing on his breathing, on counting each inhale and exhale, was far safer then prodding the sleeping beast lurking at the back of his mind.

“You’re bleeding.” Untroubled by his lack of response, Morgana moved to brush his hair aside, her fingers treading carefully around the edges of his self-inflicted injury. “Archie, do you have anything to wrap this with?”

“Uh, oh, yes. Yes, of course.”

There was a clatter, the sounds of someone rummaging, a quiet ‘thank you’ from Morgana as she accepted whatever offering had been brought. Fingers again, this time unwinding fabric about his head, pressing against the source of sticky dampness. It stung, he recognised that much, but the ability to react, to do anything other than maintain his stuttering breaths was absent. He felt like an observer in his own body; An observer who couldn’t see a thing.

“There you go.” Morgana finished her ministrations, settling beside him as she moved a hand to his back, rubbing soothing circles through the thin fabric of his shirt. His shoulders were still hitching on every second inhale, but her spell had done its work, and the sense of wild panic had been muted by a fragile veneer of calm. “Why don’t we—”

The door swung open with enough force it crashed against the stone wall. The noise startled his companion, her arms closing about him protectively once again. His own nerves were too numb to respond to the intrusion in any way beyond slumping further against the source of his support, letting her shield him from the coming storm.

“What in the name of—”

“Don’t you dare!” Softness gave way to sharpness in an instant. “Close that door.”

There was an awkward silence, broken only by his ragged breathing and a rumbling that had settled against his folded legs in the interim. Then the door closed with far more care than it had opened, green light expanding slowly to fill the small space as the intruder spoke in softer tones.

“Hisirdoux?”

That was his name, wasn’t it? Though there was really only one person who used it like that. The thought hurt, he didn’t answer, and the next words were sharp again.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Footsteps drew nearer, steel striking against stone, pausing a short distance away. He didn’t lift his head. “I found him like this.”

“And that?”

“Archie said he fell.” She paused, awaiting another question. When none was forthcoming she asked her own, “Where is Arthur?”

“Handled, for the moment, though who knows how long that will last.”

“I could hear the shouting from here.”

“The entire castle just got turned inside out.” He knew that dry tone, all too well. “You’re lucky he wasn’t the one kicking in the door.”

This... this was wrong. Impossible. Neither of these people should be here, though he was struggling to remember why. Everyone had been dying, hadn’t they? _He_ had been dying, he was sure of it. Not with the blissful unawareness of his first go around, either. This had been vengeful, painful. _‘The Order will surely rip your soul to pieces’_ Nari had said, and of course she was right. So how? How was he still alive, still breathing when he shouldn’t even exist anymore?

“Douxie?” The voices above him were still arguing; This quiet inquiry came from below. He blinked, bringing some focus back into his world of blurred colours, and chanced a glance down into worried eyes. “Are you alright?”

The last time he had seen those eyes they had been wide open and blank. That had been his fault as well. So many mistakes. Except a wizard didn’t make mistakes, so what did that make him? What did that make _this_?

It wasn’t real. That was the only explanation he could think of. This was an... an illusion, a refuge he had created for himself in order to escape the pure horror of his last moments. But there was something else. A lingering memory of golden eyes, filled with grief but equal parts determination, and powerful, ancient magic wrapping itself protectively about him, binding him together as other hands tried to tear him apart.

_‘You can’t have him!’_

Nari. Nari had been there, and she had done something. To save him? He couldn’t remember. Couldn’t make sense of any of it. Couldn’t comprehend how this could be happening. They’d already done this, hadn’t they? It had to be an illusion, a—a mirage, a refuge his mind had created. A falsity that felt real.

“Douxie?”

Archie’s soft bunting against his hand prompted him to respond, illusion or no. His body didn’t feel like it belonged to him, moving parts that no longer worked together as they were meant to, and it took more effort than it should have to make his hand drag its way along his familiar’s spine. He doubted it was comfortable for Archie either, despite his obnoxiously loud purring.

The gesture, clumsy though it was, was enough to quiet the conversation happening overhead, and coax an effort at softness out of his most certainly dead master.

“Hisirdoux?”

He swallowed, acutely aware of how raw his throat felt. He had been screaming, hadn’t he? Because he had been _dying_. He hadn’t imagined that. It wasn’t the type of experience one forgot in a hurry, and the second time hadn’t been any more pleasant than the first. Worse, actually. He’d kind of slept through the first.

“ _Hisirdoux_.”

Fingers closed about the hand not currently locked in Archie’s fur, the hold gentle yet firm. That was oddly patient of his master. Merlin had never shied away from being hands on when he thought his apprentice was moving too slowly. A tug here, a shove there. Maybe that’s why he’d been too slow to dodge that last blow. He was still waiting for Merlin to push him out of the way.

Bodily.

With his staff.

“I don’t think he’s all the way back yet.”

That’s right, Morgana was here too. It was probably her shirt he’d ruined. Or nightwear, at this hour.

“You don’t say.” It was nice, having that droll sarcasm pointed at someone else for once. “Hisirdoux, look at me.”

He could do that. Probably. Even with the strange disconnect between his body and his thoughts right now. If he had been brought back from the dead he had a feeling they’d done it wrong. Put his soul in upside down or something. That would be just his luck.

The hand on his cheek was more demanding than gentle, drawing his gaze up and away from Archie’s mournful stare to the judgemental blue of his master’s usual scowl. He hadn’t seen Merlin this angry in centuries. Oddly enough, the elder wizard didn’t seem to be glaring at him. He was still holding Douxie’s hand, gaze intent, staring at something other. He didn’t realise what until a magic that was not his own probed against the brittle edges of his soul. What had been holding together through dumb luck and desperate hope just _splintered_ , and his magic flared to life of its own accord.

He didn’t blast the entire castle this time. The wave of energy was more contained, weaker, sending Morgana and Merlin back no more than a few steps as Douxie fell onto his side, hands tearing at his own clothes in an effort to rip out the burning brand that had impaled his breastbone.

Fuzzbuckets, but that _bloody hurt_.

“—told you to be careful! Douxie? Douxie! Can you hear me?”

“Arch...” he croaked the word, reaching out blindly until he felt his feline companion slip beneath his fingers, instinctively drawing the familiar’s warmth close.

“I’m here. We’re here.” Archie’s cool confidence was missing from those shaking words. “Can you tell me what’s wrong, Douxie? It’s important.”

“I think...” Speaking was painful. So was everything else right now. He persevered. “I think I messed up, Arch.”

“Messed up? How?” The familiar was being awfully pushy, wriggling his way closer so he could stare pointedly into Douxie’s blurring eyes. “Doux?”

“I let you all down.” He couldn’t tell if his fading eyesight was due to the fresh tears or the slow darkness creeping in. This all had to end soon, surely. How much longer could he really expect to avoid the truth? “I’m sorry. Tell Nari... I’m sorry.”

“Nari? Wait, who is Nari? Douxie? Douxie!”

He closed his eyes, and the pain finally ended.


	2. If in Doubt, Blame the Wizard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin makes an appearance, nothing is really explained, and canon doesn't know what hit it.

**Chapter 2**

**If in Doubt, Blame the Wizard**

* * *

Hisirdoux Casperan was not the first apprentice Merlin had taken under his wing. There had been others over the years, though less had attained the role than had simply wished for it. Morgana could make all the claims she pleased about his prickly demeanour and unreasonable standards; None of her acerbic observations changed the fact that, before Arthur’s war against magic, hopefuls had been lining up for the chance to study beneath a Master Wizard.

Most of them had been nothing more than tricksters and conjurers of meagre ability; Useful for dazzling the masses and emptying the pockets of the gullible, but with little to offer in the way of contributions to his work. Others had proven themselves more capable; As assistants in his workshop, a second pair of eyes in the field, and — somewhat rarely — as capable spellcasters in their own right.

It had not always ended well, even for those who had not strayed from the narrow path mastery carved between madness and mediocrity. Magic was as much a burden as it was a gift. Some of those he had trained believed their powers gave them a responsibility to stand up for their kind, a path that inevitably led to the same dire end for all who chose to walk it. Others had left as soon as their tutelage was complete, eager to pursue their own interests and simultaneously make their escape from beneath Arthur’s lengthening shadow.

His king’s stance on magic had cost the Master Wizard more than one competent assistant, one way or another, and Morgana had proved herself a poor substitute. Too strong willed and frank with her opinions, she spent as much time arguing with him as she did helping. With all of that in mind, it had seemed nothing less than a miraculous stroke of good fortune when he had inadvertently stumbled across a magical prodigy.

That probably should have been his first warning.

On the surface, Hisirdoux had been no different than the dozens of others who used their paltry gifts to take advantage of the ignorant. Except for the fact the boy had been stupid enough to ply his craft on the very doorstep of the king who had sworn to destroy all magic, of course. Remarkably bad judgement had not been on his required list of virtues for a new apprentice, and he might not have chosen to intervene on the idiot’s behalf at all had it not been for that single, panicked spell.

‘Real magic’, he had called it, and meant every word. It may not have been the most impressive spell, or the most well executed, but Hisirdoux had cast it under duress without fumbling his words and with no training other than that provided by his dragon familiar, along with what scant knowledge the pair of them had been able to scrape from the few spellbooks Arthur and his Knights hadn’t yet burned to a crisp. There was talent there, untapped, and it had been his focus on that which blinded him to the fact it was wrapped up in the disastrous form of an adolescent boy.

It wasn’t common for magic so powerful to manifest in someone so young. Hedge wizards were known to discover their talents at an early age, but the recklessness of youth was tempered by the limits of their abilities, any harm that they might cause to themselves or others mitigated by the mundane nature of their magic. It was different for those with a true gift. Merlin’s own magic had come to him later in life, and the mastery over it that allowed for immortality had sadly not been in time to save him from perpetually popping joints and thinning hair. Morgana, too, had been an adult before she began to show any aptitude, and its emergence had been triggered by a traumatic event.

According to what little Archie had shared of their lives before the Master Wizard took them in, Hisirdoux had been practicing for years before he wandered foolishly into Camelot’s maw, guided by nothing more than his own instincts. Given that the boy was most certainly _not_ a hedge wizard, that fact was simultaneously impressive and terrifying. His own ignorance, coupled with that level of raw ability, could have easily ended his life long before Arthur’s knights drew their swords.

The fact that it hadn’t was convenient for the Master Wizard’s need for a new apprentice, but entirely the opposite when it came to trying to teach his student the dangers of the powers he wielded.

Hisirdoux had never suffered at the hands of his own magic, never shown Morgana’s tendency to lose control when emotions were heightened, never hurt someone he had meant to help. Whilst the gentle nature of his gift had no doubt protected him from the more dangerous pitfalls of self-taught magic, it had also made it that much more difficult to drum caution through the boy’s thick skull. Magic was the one thing besides Archie Hisirdoux had always been able to rely on in a world that had offered little in the way of shelter; Trying to convince him that it carried its own dangers and should be utilised only as needed was like trying to convince a knight his sword might bite and should be locked in a cage.

It was an uphill battle. One he had assumed he was winning, right up until his workshop was overtaken by a wave of unfettered magic in the middle of the night.

Within the space of an hour, his plans for a peaceful evening spent without apprentice or familiar underfoot had been turned completely on their head. What should have been precious minutes dedicated to his research were instead spent undoing the various enchantments his apprentice had cast to lock seemingly every door in the castle tightly closed. No sooner did he have that particular issue in hand then he was waylaid by a pack of agitated guards absolutely certain they were under attack. He hadn’t even begun to address _their_ concerns before he was accosted by a furious Arthur, the king leaving no doubt as to who he deemed to be at fault for not properly controlling the novice wizard in their midst.

The latter confrontation had turned into a one-sided shouting match that had intimidated the knights more than the castle’s magically induced antics, culminating in a forceful reminder that Arthur relied rather heavily on his Court Wizard, and therefore executing his apprentice for what had harmed no one would be a remarkably bad idea. By the time Arthur had stormed off to stand down his panicking soldiers, Merlin had developed a pounding headache and the firm intention of giving Hisirdoux the longest lecture of his young life.

Another plan he was forced to abandon when he burst into the boy’s room without knocking and found himself immediately subjected to Morgana’s icy wrath.

“Don’t you dare!”

The king’s sister somehow managed to look poised even kneeling on the floor in her nightwear, clutching a trembling, tear-streaked mess in her arms. Her glare was enough to stop him in his tracks, and he closed the door without question on her command. Hisirdoux had yet to even acknowledge his arrival. When uttering the boy’s name summoned no response, he turned his irritation onto the room’s other occupant.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I found him like this.”

Morgana shook her head helplessly as Merlin drew near, illuminating his staff in deference to the lack of light in the room. His apprentice didn’t react to the glow or to Archibald settling against his legs with a loud, nervous purring, the familiar’s agitation evidenced by the whiplike motions of his tail.

“And that?” Not satisfied in the least, he gestured at the cloth wound about the boy’s head, stained red near the edge of his hairline.

“Archie said he fell.” Morgana squinted against the brightness of his staff, eyes flashing to the door and back again. “Where is Arthur?”

“Handled, for the moment, though who knows how long that will last.” Long enough for him to sort out whatever this was, hopefully. His king’s patience was not a thing he would trust to stretch far as of late.

Morgana cast him a dubious look. “I could hear the shouting from here.”

“The entire castle just got turned inside out.” He still wasn’t sure whether to be more impressed or angry over that fact. “You’re lucky he wasn’t the one kicking in the door.”

“It wasn’t Douxie’s fault.” Even not knowing what had happened she managed to sound certain of that, holding his gaze with a challenge painted in her own. “You can’t let Arthur punish him for this.”

“We don’t even know what _this_ is, yet,” he pointed out. “Archie, do you…”

He trailed off upon realising the familiar had finally managed to coax a reaction out of his apprentice, though the hesitation with which Hisirdoux was touching his friend’s feline form was unusual in and of itself. There was a stiffness to the motion that was at odds with the way the boy was leaning bonelessly against Morgana, and the irritation at the back of his mind gave way to a spike of alarm.

“Hisirdoux?” The boy swallowed convulsively, but didn’t look up, focussed with single-minded attention on the cat crawling into his lap. With a sigh, the Master Wizard crouched beside the trio, ignoring the loud cracking in his knees as he reached out to take his apprentice’s hand in his own. Hisirdoux’s skin was icy to the touch, fine tremors running through his fingers. Merlin frowned as he repeated the boy’s name.

“I don’t think he’s all the way back yet,” Morgana interceded, not moving herself, though the position could hardly be comfortable.

“You don’t say?” He spared a moment to give her a disparaging glance, then turned his attention back to the object of this ridiculous conversation. “Hisirdoux, look at me.”

There was no visible reaction to his words, though the hand held in his own clenched reflexively. The slight hiss from Archibald suggested the familiar had been subjected to the same treatment, even if he didn’t voice any complaints. Patience thinning rapidly, Merlin set his staff aside so he could use his hand to guide his apprentice’s eyes up to meet his own. There was no real focus in the gaze that greeted him; Hisirdoux looked right through him with only a vague spark of recognition, and the realisation hit with all the force of a dousing in ice water that this was something far more serious than an overreaction to a bad dream.

“Let’s see what we’re dealing with, then.”

Ignoring Archie’s urging to be careful, he gathered his magic, letting it travel in a wave along the physical connections between himself and his apprentice. He’d already been aware of the turbulence in the boy’s aura, tangible even now it was subdued, but examining it directly in this fashion offered a far more haunting perspective. Hisirdoux’s magic was churning violently, seeking an enemy to fight, yet even that couldn’t hide the jagged lines of shadow etched into the boy’s soul, spiderwebbing outwards, drenched in the distinctive stench of dark magic.

Pursing his lips, he reached out to prod the edges of that darkness, trying to identify what spell could have caused it. Hisirdoux flinched away as soon as he extended his energy, reacting with all the reason of a cornered animal.

He was flung backward in an instant, landing on his haunches. He hadn’t been expecting the magic to be that strong after the vast amount of energy his apprentice had already expended, though predictably the boy’s efforts were not without a price. He collapsed onto his side without Morgana there to support him any longer, curling in on himself as his familiar hovered in ever increasing worry.

“I told you to be careful!” The admonishment was given and forgotten in the same breath. “Douxie? Douxie! Can you hear me?”

The answer was too quiet for Merlin to hear, but he saw his apprentice reach for the familiar, tugging him close.

“I’m here. We’re here.” Archie’s voice was trembling. “Can you tell me what’s wrong, Douxie? It’s important.”

He already knew the answer to that. If they were lucky, Archibald would be able to coax the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ out of his wizard. Moving to retrieve his staff from amidst the carnage of Hisirdoux’s room, Merlin turned back just in time to watch Archie go into a full blown panic as his familiar fell limp.

He crossed the space between them in three strides, dropping to one knee and spending a few fraught seconds verifying the boy was still breathing. It was shallow, and Hisirdoux was too pale and cold to the touch for comfort, but his chest was still rising and falling. Positioning himself above the boy’s prone form, Merlin placed a hand on either side of Hisirdoux’s head, stretching out his sixth sense once more now that his student was in no position to fend off his intrusion.

“What’s wrong with him?” Archibald’s voice was plaintive, the young dragon back in his natural form as he stared up at Merlin with naked fear, seeking answers where none were to be found. 

“That magic was defensive,” Morgana pointed out. “He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, he was trying to protect himself. Something or _someone_ caused this.”

Her eyes went to the door, a dark expression on her face, as if she was already putting a visage to her imaginary villain. Merlin could easily guess where her thoughts were going, but he didn’t have the time or the patience to deal with royal squabbles. His attention was needed elsewhere.

Hisirdoux’s magic was quiet again now, drained in that last, frantic effort to ward off danger. It flickered briefly as he extended his own, but with no more strength than a guttering candle fighting to stay alight in a strong breeze. He was better able to assess the damage without its interference, the knowledge his examination brought him cold comfort.

The shadows remained, a blemish on what had always been bright; Heavy and thick and not his main concern. They were only a symptom, stemming from terrible cracks rendered directly upon the boy’s soul. As if something had reached within the very heart of what made Hisirdoux _Hisirdoux_ and tried to tear him to pieces.

Not tried, he amended, succeeded.

He was careful as he studied the torn edges. Hisirdoux shuddered beneath his hands anyway, whimpering softly and prompting Morgana to reach out and close her fingers about the boy’s in an irrational attempt to provide comfort. Merlin very much doubted his apprentice was aware of her efforts, or of Archie’s determined rumbling as he practically adhered his body to his familiar’s. He let them be regardless, not about to divide his own attention to tell them so. Not when he was just coming to the chilling realisation the harm that had been inflicted here was meant to be fatal.

Even as he reached that conclusion the damage was spreading, the dark stains growing larger as the cracks expanded, like a tear in a taut rope slowly succumbing to the pressure. Hisirdoux’s aura dimmed just a little more with each minute that passed, his magic thrashing weakly in its final throes.

His apprentice, who had left his study only a handful of hours before, spellbook in hand and practically skipping with glee, was dying.

It was unacceptable.

Healing magic was not his forte. He knew the incantations, but each wizard’s magic had a mind of its own and his refused to bend towards such arts. It had never seemed such a shortcoming as it did now, Hisirdoux’s skin frigidly cold against his fingers as shallow breaths marked an uneven rhythm against the boy’s lips. Fortunately, he had not spent decades guarding the mortal realm to panic at the first sign of trouble. He was nothing if not resourceful, and it took but a few seconds to arrive at a solution.

Weaving his own magic this close to an injury inflicted directly on the soul carried its own dangers, and he pointedly shut out the voices of the room’s other occupants as he carefully laid a stasis field over the expanding edges of the spreading corruption. It would not last forever, particularly not if Hisirdoux’s own magic recovered and saw his meddling as a threat, but it would buy him some time to find a more permanent solution before his apprentice’s condition deteriorated further.

The chamber was utterly silent when he emerged from his trance, breathing heavily from the concentrated effort. He glanced up to find Morgana and Archibald both watching him with equal parts trepidation and curiosity. Ignoring the silent question they posed, he glanced about the room, frowning at the open window swinging gently in the breeze and the haphazardly scattered furniture.

Hisirdoux couldn’t remain here, that much was clear.

“Archie, my staff.”

Thrusting the weapon at the familiar and waiting only long enough for Archie to clumsily seize a hold of it, he gathered the limp form of his apprentice into his arms, gaining his feet and whirling towards the door in a single, smooth motion. Morgana raised an eyebrow at him but did not question, holding the door open and then hastening to keep up as he set a punishing pace through the castle halls.

Flying above them, Archie swooped in close to demand answers, “Where are we going?”

“My tower is the most strongly warded part of this castle,” Merlin answered briskly, not slowing his stride even when it forced an uneasy patrol of knights to skitter out of his way. “We’re going to take Hisirdoux to safety, and then we are going to find some answers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so this chapter definitely includes a few head canons regarding magic which will probably be nullified as soon as canon addresses them, but for clarity’s sake I’ll just include the reasoning here.
> 
> 1\. ‘It wasn’t common for magic so powerful to manifest in someone so young’ 
> 
> Of the four true wizards that we see, Hisirdoux appears to have been the one who got his abilities the earliest. We aren’t given an age for when Merlin started using magic, but given that Hisirdoux went 900 years without ageing over 19, it seems reasonable to assume that Merlin’s magic was something that came to him later in life. We’re never told how old he is, but even if the canon explanation is that wizards age really slowly instead of stopping at a certain point Merlin would have had to be thousands upon thousands of years old to look the way he does. 
> 
> Morgana is also an adult when she gets her abilities, and they manifest after Gwen dies. I have seen a theory floating around that the Arcane Order gave her that magic because it is golden and Arthur also has golden magic once possessed, but Excalibur’s magic was always golden, so it seems more likely that’s just the Camelot magic colour. (A point of interest, Archie’s form shifting is also a golden flash). So, for this, we’re treating Morgana’s magic as her own, and she was an adult when it manifested.
> 
> Claire did get her magic earlier, but only after first stealing the staff and then being possessed by Morgana and absorbing all her knowledge. It wasn’t necessarily something that came to her in the natural course of things. That could just be because modern world=less magic, but still. There was a trigger. 
> 
> The hedge wizards we do see in the show all seem to be on the younger side, and we never really see what they are capable of; whether they are limited by the scope of their power or a lack of study. For this particular story I’m running with the theory that the ability to magic electronics into shape and charm objects etc is not at all on the same level as the literal powerhouses we see in Merlin, Morgana, Claire, and Douxie. They can fight, certainly, but not on the same playing field as the Arcane Order. 
> 
> Douxie, by comparison to the other three wizards, especially if you go by Teny’s concept sketches, has his abilities from a very early age, hence the line above. 
> 
> 2\. ‘…never shown Morgana’s tendency to lose control when emotions were heightened’.
> 
> Morgana and Claire are both crystal clear examples of the ‘magic is emotion’ theme. The scene with Morgana in Merlin’s workshop. Claire’s nightmares and her argument with Merlin in HexTech all have magic responding to the emotions of their wielders. Douxie, by contrast, only exhibits this once, when Merlin is killed. Even his younger self, who is a bundle of anxiety and enthusiasm and disaster, doesn’t appear to exhibit emotions with magic in any obvious way. The closest thing we see to his younger self losing control is his broom turning on him when it realised Merlin was coming. Maybe it’s just because rage is the predominant cause of those outbursts and Douxie’s anger is a relatively quiet thing by comparison, but it was still an observation I wanted to work into the narrative.


	3. Keep Calm and Panic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A moppet in distress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I have unexpectedly received three days off work (in a good way), so we are celebrating with an early chapter. Enjoy. :-)

**Chapter 3  
**

**Keep Calm and Panic  
**

* * *

The next time he awoke he was lying on his back, resting on something far softer than the stone floor. There was a pillow beneath his head and a thick blanket that had been tucked around his shoulders; He could feel the warmth against his skin even as his body shivered helplessly, caught in the sensation of ice lodged beneath his ribs. There was a weight on his chest, a comforting heaviness that vibrated slightly and eased the fierce ache that still lingered there, and a hand that rested sometimes against his forehead or trailed in idle patterns through his hair. He must have opened his eyes at some point — someone asked if he was awake — but he couldn’t see anything that made sense and let them drift closed again.

Snatches of conversation came to him, broken and disjointed, as if he were walking in and out of a room in the middle of a debate. It seemed like an argument, mostly; Two, sometimes three, voices bouncing one off the other. Other times it was softer, just one voice speaking to him as that gentle rumble rolled on and on. 

Another sensation came and went. A touch that was not physical, warmth that briefly eased the ice in his veins before receding and taking that comfort with it. He both wanted it to stay and did not; Grateful for the gentleness but fearful of what lingered behind it.

He woke up. The rumble was gone and he was still cold. Quiet voices drifted back and forth somewhere not too distant from where he’d been placed. The pain had receded to something more manageable, though he still felt awful, his limbs leaden weights he couldn’t bring himself to move just yet. Not until he figured out what had happened.

His head was pounding like a drum, which didn’t exactly facilitate clear thinking. He tried anyway, uncomfortably aware of how _wrong_ he felt in his own skin. It was like his own body didn’t quite fit him anymore; An inch short of his expectations, the bracelet on his wrist not the comforting weight it should have been, the magic at his fingertips a stronger force than he knew how to control. He felt stitched together, stiff in a way that had nothing to do with the physical, and underneath all of that was the overwhelming, irrational need to _run_.

Summoning his willpower in the place of any actual strength, he threw back the covers of what he belatedly realised was his master’s bed. That small act took nearly all the energy he had — he certainly wasn’t going to be running _anywhere_ in the immediate future — but he did manage to lever himself upright, freezing when he caught sight of his reflection in the full length mirror on the opposite wall.

He’d never exactly been a picture of health; Pale and with ample bags under his eyes to speak of too many sleepless nights. Right now, there was no colour in his face at all. The slight roundness his cheeks had gained with the advent of regularly available meals was gone, the gauntness that replaced it making him look almost skeletal. The shadows under his eyes could have been bruises, though he had a feeling it would have hurt less if someone had actually punched him in the face. There was a strip of linen tied about his head, stained red where it rested against a wound he did not remember getting, and the tips of his hair appeared to have turned blue.

He touched the coloured edges just to be certain he wasn’t seeing things, the sight strangely familiar and yet utterly foreign, then grimaced at his reflection as his chest throbbed. He raised a hand to press against it as he struggled to remember why it hurt at all. He had a vague recollection of ice encasing his hands, pinning him in place as a glowing red stone was pressed to his chest, flooding him with furious, malevolent magic. He remembered pain, worse than anything he had felt in all his life, and then an awful wrenching sensation as a cooler, softer touch ripped him away from imminent death, leaving pieces behind as he was torn free.

None of it made sense. Not the memory, not the pain, and not the creeping sense that he wasn’t safe here. He couldn’t think clearly around the nonsensical thoughts bouncing back and forth within his skull. He stood up because he felt like he should, then wavered as the room revolted against its stationary existence. Gripping the wall for balance, he waited out the slow rotation of the floor beneath his feet, letting go only once his knees locked and his vision stopped swimming in sickening circles. He made it all of two steps and then lost his balance again, flailing wildly, taking an entire shelf of potions to the floor with him.

The crash was horrendous, and predictably cut whatever conversation was happening in the next room short. He heard and felt the approaching footsteps, blessedly numb to the pain of his own impact, and did nothing to escape them. It was habit that drove the slurred words he uttered when a hand gripped his shoulder and turned him over.

“S—sorry, Master. I’ll clean it up. I—”

“Hisirdoux, I could not care less about the state of my floor right now. Are _you_ alright?”

He blinked stupidly, upright with Merlin’s hands gripping his shoulders, Archie hovering in fretful silence behind the Master Wizard.

“Uh...” That was definitely not intelligible. He raised a hand to touch his head, to try and order his thoughts. It came away damp, a fact that seemed inconsequential in the face of the unknown danger that was making his heart race and his wobbling legs itch to move. But Merlin had asked a question, and it was _an_ answer, even if it was not the right one. “I think I’m bleeding again.”

Merlin made an odd noise in the back of his throat. Hisirdoux couldn’t tell if it was anger or frustration, and wasn’t given much time to think about it. The Master Wizard tugged him to his feet and set him on the edge of the bed before the room could start spinning again. Archie immediately settled in his lap, the familiar not even trying to hide the fact it was to keep him in place. He needn’t have bothered; Douxie wasn’t planning on getting up again any time soon.

It was still so hard to think, and he felt as if he was forgetting something. Something important. His attempts to grab at his skittish thoughts only made his head pound more fiercely, and he was pitching forward before he knew what direction that was, resting his burning forehead against the comfortable coolness of Merlin’s shoulder plates.

“Hisirdoux...”

For once, his master sounded more perturbed than irritated. Irrationally, that realisation had him swallowing around a lump in his throat, desperately trying to still the tremors overtaking him again. He couldn’t really hope to hide it; Merlin was holding him in place, Archie kneading quietly in his lap. He tried anyway.

“Hisirdoux, I need you to focus.” Merlin didn’t try to shift him, letting him stay where he was despite how awkward it must have made seeing to his injury. “I need to know what happened before Morgana found you. Did you go anywhere, touch anything, see anyone?”

“I’ve already told you,” Archie snapped irritably. “We were in your study all day, and I was in the room with him when he woke up. Nothing happened that would cause this!”

“And I’ve already told _you_ that can’t be right. An injury like this doesn’t happen by accident. Someone caused this. You must have missed them.”

“My eyesight may be bad, but I can assure you I would have noticed someone attacking my own familiar!”

_Torn black wings and frosted fur. His own voice cracking as grief blinded him for the bare second his adversaries needed to render him helpless._

_“We told you you would die for this.”_

_Ice and fire_

_Red and blue._

_“You should have run when you had the chance.”_

_Pain. Excruciating, inescapable pain._

He back-pedalled so fast he dislodged Archie right onto the floor, freezing when his back hit the wall and feeling his breath stutter in his chest as his eyes darted frantically about the room, trying to find the danger. It took a long time for the ringing in his ears to quiet enough for him to realise he was being spoken to; Longer still for the words to start making sense.

“Back with us, Hisirdoux?”

Merlin waited until his gaze focussed, then released the frantic dragon he’d been holding in check. Archie approached cautiously, pouncing when Douxie opened his arms in invitation. Holding his familiar close, he buried his face in Archie’s reassuring warmth. He didn’t make a sound when the first sob escaped him. He didn’t need to; Archie always knew.

“Oh, _Douxie_.”

He could feel Merlin’s weighted gaze on them, though the Master Wizard remained silent, giving them a few moments of precious peace. When he did speak it was with an awkward gentleness that was more rusted than Galahad’s old set of plate.

“You are safe here.” His teacher had made a similar promise, he recalled, that first terrifying night in a castle surrounded by Arthur’s knights. It hadn’t sounded any more reassuring back then. “The tower is warded against hostile magic, and Morgana and I have made sure no one but the three of us can safely get inside.”

“Four,”’Archie chipped in, only slightly muffled by Douxie unintentionally crushing him. “Merlin is right, Doux. No one is going to hurt you.”

“I—I don’t.” His breaths still didn’t seem large enough to fill his lungs, making it difficult to get the words out. “I don’t remember what... what happened.”

“At all?”

It could have been alarm or disbelief colouring Merlin’s words. He didn’t dare look to see, shaking his head by way of an answer. Merlin inhaled sharply, but kept his words calm when he spoke.

“Hisirdoux, I need to examine the wound again.”

Archie hissed at the intrusion. Douxie lifted his head just enough to peer at his master through his messy fringe, the shock of colour there distracting him momentarily before he refocused. Merlin took the fleeting eye contact as an invitation to continue.

“There is dark magic at work here. I need to make sure you aren’t getting any worse.” He offered his hand, movements as steady as ever, and uncharacteristically made another promise. “If it makes you feel better, you can watch what I’m doing. It won’t hurt.”

It had last time. He took Merlin’s hand anyway, forcing himself to sit a little straighter as he closed his eyes, becoming aware of the brush of his master’s magic against his own. The touch was careful, encasing him slowly, Merlin’s bright aura a stark contrast to his own paled, disrupted magic. He felt no danger, no ill intent, just the same gentle pull Merlin had used to guide him through countless other exercises. He found himself tensing regardless, breath catching in his throat as his master’s focus began to drag them both deeper.

“Easy...” Archie’s reassurance sounded right beside his ear. Unconsciously, he tightened his one-armed embrace around the small dragon. “You’re safe, Douxie. I’m not going to let anyone harm you.”

If only he’d been able to return that favour. If only his newfound confidence hadn’t been ripped out from under his feet so quickly he hadn’t had time to realise just how badly wrong things had gone until he was about to be wiped from the face of existence. Stray thoughts, and terrifying ones, because the memories attached to them continued to elude him with the determined agility of a feral gnome.

He would have to sit down and figure this all out later. Once Merlin was finished and he’d rested some more. For the time being, he followed in the Master Wizard’s metaphorical footsteps, slowly taking notice of the various physical sensations he had been doing his best to ignore.

He ached all over, though it had dulled somewhat since his awakening. There was a headache brewing behind his eyes that he supposed was to be expected after whatever hard surface he had introduced his skull to the first time. The knot in his chest was still there, winding itself tighter with every breath. Beneath all of that, beneath every pain vying for his attention, his magic was unsettled, stronger than he remembered it being even as it lay in latent disquiet; A calm lake awaiting the pebble that would shatter its serene face .

That pebble, as it turned out, was his first glimpse at the damage that had been done to him.

He was missing pieces.

He was missing pieces of _himself_.

What had been a strange sense of displacement was now a crystal clear realisation that he was not whole, dark shadows overtaking his spirit the way a troll’s flesh turned to stone in sunlight. He bolted upright in a surge of pure panic, fingers finding and grasping a vicelike hold of his master’s arms. His chest was hurting again, his lungs fighting for air as panic overtook him. Merlin’s hands closed about his forearms in a mirror of his own position, his master’s lips moving without sound.

The world faded out to a grey vista. For a dreadful few moments, that was all he could see. Sounds began to trickle back in first, his name being repeated over and over in forcefully calm tones that didn’t quite drown out the awful, wheezing noise that was his breathing. Colours followed, blurry and indistinct, slowly gaining clarity until he could look into Merlin’s eyes and see the vestiges of his own panic lingering there.

“That’s better,” Merlin spoke the moment Douxie made eye contact. “You need to stay calm.”

“Calm?” He shook his head, trembling, his magic sparking at his fingertips, seeking an enemy that didn’t exist. “I’m... there’s... What’s _wrong_ with me?”

It came out as a cracked whisper. Merlin surprised him with the vehemence of his response. “Nothing is wrong with you,” he asserted firmly. “Someone did this, but there is no need to panic just yet. I am confident I can find a way to fix it.”

“What if you can’t?” He had to ask, even though he didn’t want to. “What if you can’t fix it? I’m...” Broken. He was broken. Cracked and incomplete. He couldn’t stop shaking; It was a wonder Merlin’s armour wasn’t rattling beneath his grip.

“Then we will find someone who can.” Merlin said it so matter-of-factly it was almost comforting. Archie’s determined rubbing against his side was more so, and he peeled his clenched fingers away from Merlin’s arms to attach them to Archie instead as the Master Wizard continued, “Are you in any pain?”

He answered automatically, “My chest hurts.”

Merlin frowned, bringing his glowing hand to hover over the affected area. Douxie caught himself shying away from the motion on instinct, his breath catching in his throat.

“I mean, it’s fine! I’m fine, no need to—”

“ _Hisirdoux_.”

He cringed, though a strange corner of his mind railed against the reaction. Maybe his chest wasn’t the problem at all; It felt like his skull was trying to split in two.

“He knows what he’s doing, Douxie,”’Archie offered his own encouragement. “Probably.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence, Archibald.”

“You did set him off... twice.”

“ _That_ was the work of whatever nefarious hand caused this, not my doing.”

“I’m fairly certain your bumbling didn’t help.”

“ _Bumbling_? You ungrateful—!”

Laughter bubbled up his throat like scalding acid and emerged as another cracked sob. The conversation cut off abruptly as he tried to muffle the sound behind his hand, before deciding he was too tired, sore, and confused to pretend he wasn’t terrified out of his wits right now. Archie immediately pressed himself closer, purring in that impossibly loud way he did when he was trying to drown out his familiar’s upset. Merlin was a lot slower, sitting frozen, then stiffly slipping an arm about his apprentice’s shoulders.

It wasn’t enough, and Douxie risked rejection to turn and tuck himself closer against his mentor’s side, ignoring the hard edges of the wizard’s armour as he clutched Archie in his arms. Merlin exhaled softly, then brought his other hand up to pat Douxie awkwardly between the shoulder blades.

The warmth of his magic withdrew with the physical touch.

Douxie was still cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon A/N: I am a subscriber to the belief that Douxie's hair colour is due to his magic, particularly as certain scenes where the light shines off the darker parts there is a blue tint to what otherwise appears to be black. (Fanfiction research, everyone. XD)


	4. A Puzzle Incomplete

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A common goal fails to foster cooperation, and questions without answers continue to perplex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I am forced to try and include some actual plot and civil conversations are in short supply.

**Chapter 4  
**

**A Puzzle Incomplete  
**

* * *

To say that Merlin was furious would have been as wild an understatement as the claim that Arthur was not especially fond of magic. He was not certain there was a word for the incandescent rage boiling just beneath his skin, threatening to dissolve carefully constructed walls that had not crumbled in decades. It took a conscious effort to keep a lid on that fury as he guided his exhausted apprentice to lie down once again, the boy having spent what little strength he’d regained in a few scant minutes. Shivers still wracked his slender frame, his body reacting to the invisible wound festering beneath the surface, though at this point Merlin was more worried about his state of mind.

He had never seen Hisirdoux display such raw terror before, not even at the sword point of Arthur’s knights. Then again, Galahad had only threatened to execute him, not tear his soul to shreds and leave him with the tattered remains.

The worst part was he did not think there were meant to _be_ any remains. Whoever had attacked his apprentice had done so with the intention of destroying him completely. They had come dangerously close to succeeding, thwarted by the boy’s own magic, which raised more questions than it answered. If Hisirdoux had encountered a creature powerful enough to wound him in this way, how was he still alive? How had a child whose own enchantments still flummoxed him fended off that sort of danger?

He wasn’t going to get any answers from Hisirdoux right now, that much was clear. His apprentice was mumbling restlessly in his sleep again, nonsensical words, the delusional arguments of an overstressed mind.

“Tell me you know how to fix this.” Archie had settled himself behind his familiar’s shoulders, one paw draped over the boy’s arm, but his eyes were fixed on Merlin, plea and demand both in that gaze. “Tell me you can help him.”

“I intend to do everything in my power, Archibald.” It wasn’t quite the same lie he’d told his apprentice, trying to soothe the boy’s panic before he did himself further injury, but it wasn’t the whole truth either; He was already doing everything in his power, it simply wasn’t enough.

“That’s not a ‘yes’.” The tiny dragon gave him a look that could almost have been called threatening. “He thinks you’re capable of anything, you know. Maybe it’s time you lived up to the legend.”

Not gracing that barbed statement with a response, he tucked the blanket back about Hisirdoux’s shoulders, pausing just long enough to rest a hand on the boy’s clammy forehead as he renewed his stasis spell for the umpteenth time. That done, he took his leave, refusing to acknowledge Archie’s lingering stare as he slipped out of the room.

Morgana was waiting for him when he reentered the workshop, pacing back and forth with long, sweeping strides, a book held open in her hands. She whirled as soon as the door opened.

“How is he?”

Straight to the point. Her and Arthur were very alike in that way. He didn’t answer at once, drifting across the room to the cluttered workbench by the stained glass windows. There was a fine layer of dust there that had gathered over the past two days, the designs he had been pouring over what seemed a lifetime ago now sitting discarded and forgotten. He sensed Morgana’s impatience as he lifted the page of sketches and idly examined its contents, dropping the weighted truth into the tense silence.

“Slipping away.” It was an inadequate description for what would happen if he didn’t find a way to stop the dark magic from finishing its work. What was confusion and spontaneous panic now would devolve into raving madness as Hisirdoux’s very essence continued to crumble. The boy was already losing memories, the spell he had cast only slowing the process, not preventing it. “I have no doubt this was an attempt to kill him.”

“ _Why_?” Her outrage echoed his own. Where his bubbled beneath a thin veneer of self-control, hers revealed itself in a flash of righteous fury, the room rattling briefly as she paced closer. “He’s a child, Merlin!”

“That I cannot say.” His suspicions, founded on his knowledge of the type of magic it took to cause this kind of injury, seemed ludicrous. Hisirdoux was not trained enough to be a threat to anyone yet — besides himself — and certainly not enough of a danger to warrant such wanton cruelty. The being who had attacked his apprentice under Arthur’s very nose had done so with purely malicious intent. To hurt someone in that way, to threaten not only their life but their existence beyond the mortal plane as well... that was an act of pure hatred. More perturbing still, Hisirdoux appeared to have been the only target. Not even Archie had been wounded, despite the fact the pair of them shared the same bed. “Though I intend to find out.”

“I will help in any way I can,” she asserted, coming to stand on the opposite side of the work table. “What about Douxie? Is there anything he needs? Anything we can do?”

“He needs a proper healer.” Morgana scowled, and Merlin’s own glare deepened out of habit. It was a tall order. Neither of them had a gift for healing magic, formidable wizards though they might be, and those of Camelot’s dwindling magical community who were proficient in the healing arts had been some of the first victims in Arthur’s war against magic. Such individuals were typically well-known and notoriously bad at keeping themselves hidden, driven as they were to put their skills to good use. Hisirdoux had shown some aptitude for minor healing charms using his runic bracelet, but not to the level required to mend someone’s shredded spirit; Certainly not when he was the victim.

“Did he tell you what happened?” Morgana was on the hunt. He’d seen that look enough times to recognise it. “A name? A face?”

“No, not yet.” He could have pushed. It was clear Hisirdoux remembered _something_ , and was deeply disturbed by it. Perhaps that was why he’d chosen not to force the matter. Further stress right now would only make things worse. He also had the image of his apprentice reeling away from him in abject terror ingrained in his mind, and wasn’t in any great hurry to repeat that experience. “We’ll have a chance to ask some more pertinent questions when next he wakes. In the meantime, we should continue our efforts to keep the castle secure.”

“You’re worried about Arthur.”

“He is a rather more likely candidate for assassination than my very green apprentice.”

“You haven’t even considered the possibility that you were the target, have you?” He came up short, casting her a piercing look. Morgana rolled her eyes. “Of course you haven’t. He is _your_ apprentice, Merlin. If anyone wanted to draw you out, Douxie is by far the easiest way to reach you.”

It made a disturbing amount of sense, much as he would prefer to deny it. Anyone with even an inkling of familiarity with the royal court would be aware that he would go to Arthur’s aid as required, but the king had an enchanted blade and dozens of trained knights at his beck and call. He would not fall without a fight. Hisirdoux, on the other hand, couldn’t even fend off an enchanted broom. It was entirely possible, even probable, that anyone trying to strike down the Master Wizard would see his apprentice as the weak link in the chain.

Except, that would suggest that the person responsible believed he would set everything else aside to assure the welfare of his student. That assumption was to his advantage; Or, it would have been, had he not spent the last two days doing exactly that. Without the constant renewal of his stasis spell, Hisirdoux might not have survived long enough to regain consciousness. Putting aside his other duties had seemed the right thing to do at the time, weighed against the unnerving thought of no longer having apprentice and dragon constantly underfoot. Morgana was forcing him to face the fact his enemies may have depended upon him making that exact decision, and consider the very real possibility his eyes had deliberately been drawn away from some greater danger.

He wasn’t in the mood to entertain that thought, or to acknowledge the stark fear nipping gently at his heels, so he deliberately set them both aside. There had been no further attacks; It seemed reasonable to assume Hisirdoux was the only target for the time being, as perplexing as that was.

“There is no point speculating until we know more,” he said aloud, knowing the silence had stretched a beat too long. “Better to concentrate on securing our defenses and finding someone to help Hisirdoux.”

“You won’t find anyone in Camelot. You know that.”

That she was right didn’t make him any less aggravated by the observation. “What do you suggest, then?”

“I could try.”

He had not been expecting it, which was the only reason it took him more than a second to formulate his reply. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“I think enough damage has already been done without bringing Shadow Magic into the mix, don’t you?”

“I’m not going to hurt him!”

“No, because you will not be using your dark arts anywhere near him. I forbid it.”

She clenched her fists around the volume in her hands, the room rattling again as she stared him down in muted fury. “You know you are part of the problem, don’t you? If you didn’t spend so much time dismissing and demonising that which you don’t understand perhaps Arthur would not feel so justified in destroying every form of magic that does not serve him.”

“Rubbish.” He waved the words away. “We both know where Arthur’s hatred of magic stems from. It has nothing to do with me.”

“You are blind if you truly believe that.”

“And you are wasting my time with pointless arguments in the midst of a crisis. I have better things to do right now than have this discussion with you again.”

He turned towards the door, only to have it come aglow with magic as it slammed shut.

“I am not Hisirdoux to be dismissed whenever you don’t feel like listening.”

“More’s the pity.” He swung back around to face her with his condemnation. “I did at least think you had enough regard for the boy not to delay my work.”

The glare she fixed on him could have quelled Gunmar himself. Merlin simply glared right back, raising an imperious eyebrow in that way he knew she hated.

“Waiting and _hoping_ you’ll think of something is not the answer, Merlin, as you well know. You just don’t want to admit it.”

“What I refuse to admit is that diving headfirst into the Shadow Realm is a viable solution to the problem at hand. Because it isn’t.”

“You don’t know that.” She gestured with the book in her hands. Not one of his library; He had never encouraged this exploration of dark magic. He didn’t even know where she had happened across it, only that he deeply regretted not having snatched it away to cast into the fire years ago. “You don’t know Shadow Magic. How can you be so certain it won’t work?”

“Common sense, girl.” She glowered at the title, a humbling she had earned with her adamance. “Double the poison does not make a cure.”

“There is _nothing_ there to cure.” She slammed her hand palm down on the table. Out of the corner of his eye, Merlin marked Archie emerging from the bedchamber, though whether he intended to intervene or simply wanted to be closer to the unfolding argument was debatable. “Whatever magic did this to him _destroyed_ parts of his soul. They’re not there to be mended, they’re gone. He’s not a torn cloak, Merlin. You can’t just tie the pieces that remain together and hope it’s enough to cover what is missing. Even if you get him back on his feet you will stretch him so thin you’ll be lucky if he doesn’t kill himself the first time he tries to cast a spell!”

“And how would you know that, hmm? What extensive well of experience are you drawing your theories from?”

“ _This_.” She lifted up the spell book, shoving it at his chest. He seized it on instinct, and she took the opportunity to pluck several more volumes off the table and toss them in his direction as well. He caught those with magic, which was preferable to his face, and watched her storm closer whilst struggling to contain his own rising ire. “You are so convinced that your way is the only way that it has never even occurred to you that I _chose_ to study Shadow Magic for this very reason. For when other means are not enough. You have no idea how it works because you think it is beneath you. I do know. I can use it. And I know that if we have any hope of restoring Douxie’s soul the Shadow Realm is our best chance. Somebody tore that boy to pieces, Merlin, what’s missing doesn’t exist in this world anymore, but that sort of dark magic leaves a trail. I can save him if you will just _trust me_.”

“And when what you save is not Hisirdoux? When you patch him back together with dark magic and corrupt him entirely? What then, Morgana?”

“I know the difference.”

“No, you _think_ you know the difference, and I will not wager my apprentice’s life on your arrogance.”

“ _My_ arrogance? You are the old fool who can’t see past your own self-importance to what your inaction has cost us all! You could have stopped Arthur years ago if you so chose, but you needed him to keep you safe so you could continue your all important work, at the cost of the hundreds of innocents you abandoned. The only reason your apprentice ever needed saving was because you were too much of a coward to stand up to your king!”

“How dare you—!”

“Stop it, both of you!” The outburst was such a surprise that Merlin was actually struck to silence, turning in tandem with Morgana to stare at the small dragon glaring at them both with a baleful expression. “What you seem to be forgetting is that this isn’t your decision to make, it’s Douxie’s. He is the one who has been hurt here, and you deciding what is best for him without bothering to even ask what he thinks is not going to help matters at all. When he wakes up we will _all_ have a civilised discussion on what the best thing to do is. Until then, perhaps you two Master Wizards can put your heads together and properly figure out who was responsible for this. Before they do the same thing to someone else.”

The ensuing hush was awkward, to say the least. Archie refused to back down, standing with wings flared and lips curled back in a faint snarl as he tried to look as intimidating as a dragon that didn’t come up to one’s knees could. Merlin was the first to turn away, stalking back to the table to set down the books Morgana had flung at him in her fury. Unfortunately for him, years spent as his student had taught her to read his silences better than anyone else, and there was disbelief in her eyes when he turned back to face the pair of them.

“You already know, don’t you?” she accused.

“I suspect,” he defended himself. “That is not the same thing as knowing.”

“Yes, yes, it’s completely different,” Archie pressed impatiently. “Who do you _suspect_ is responsible then?”

He had not been ready to disclose this much to anyone just yet. Sadly, he could not see a way out of it without inciting another argument. It was a small miracle they hadn’t already woken Hisirdoux with all the shouting that had been going on, and he didn’t want to subject himself to Archie’s righteous anger should it start up again. Instead, he adopted the stance of a teacher once more, marching back and forth as he spoke, “The ability to injure someone in this way is not common. Shadow Magic might allow you to tether a soul to a traumatic memory, hold it in place, twist it until it bends to your will, or rip it from its mortal flesh entirely, but it does not allow you to cause irreparable harm. This is something older, darker. This is the Arcane Order.”

Morgana exchanged a glance with the familiar, then asked the expected question, “What is the Arcane Order?”

“You mean _who_ ,” he held up a finger to emphasise his point. “They are a trio of ancient wizards who protect the balance between the magic and the mortal worlds by rendering destruction on those they perceive to be a threat. If you want to blame anyone for the world’s growing mistrust of magic, Morgana, the Order should be at the top of your list. To say that they are responsible for the deaths of hundreds would likely be understating the bloody mark they have left on history. Part of the reason I aided Arthur in uniting Camelot was because it was becoming abundantly clear I could not continue to fight them on my own, and the divisions amongst the mortal kingdoms made them easy prey. The Order has been quiet since Arthur came to power; I might have known they were planning something.”

“Why Douxie, though?” Archie wondered aloud. “Why not Arthur? Why not you?”

“I do not know.” It grated to admit that much. Morgana’s theory might hold some merit, but he still didn’t understand why the Order would not have come for him directly. He was not an easy mark, but he was not unreachable either. “If it _was_ the Arcane Order, then I do not even know how Hisirdoux survived. These are beings older than nearly any other that walks the earth. Hisirdoux is a child. It doesn’t make sense.”

“We are missing something,” Morgana agreed, leaning across the table to emphasise her next point. “So let me look for it.”

He folded his arms, making his disapproval known. “We are going in circles, Morgana. The answer is still _no_.”

“But—!”

“Enough!” He called his staff to his hand from across the room just to add the force of slamming it on the ground to his words. “I need to go make sure our king is kept informed of this potential threat. If you want to make yourself useful, try searching my library for a solution that won’t simply kill the boy faster.”

“Kill?” Archie’s head shot up, eyes wide behind his glasses. “He’s _dying_?”

Merlin took that as his cue to leave the room. Let Morgana be the one to break the bad news. If she was doing that perhaps she wouldn’t feel tempted to go rooting through every scrap of forbidden knowledge Arthur had not yet managed to destroy.

A doubtful outcome, but a wizard could hope.

Right now, that seemed like all he could do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story Canon Notes:
> 
> "Hisirdoux had shown some aptitude for minor healing charms using his runic bracelet..." - Not strictly canon, but Douxie's role in the Trollhunters game is team healer, which at lease loosely implies he has some sort of remedial spell in his arsenal. His (minor) injuries also disappear between scenes in Episode 8, and I assume he was going to attempt to use some sort of healing spell on Merlin before Merlin stopped him.


	5. Truths the Shadows Hide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin's word is law, but neither of them have ever cared much for obeying authority.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This was one of those fun chapters that fights you at every stage, whether that be in the planning, the writing, or the editing. I am semi-satisfied with the outcome for now, so we are still posting on schedule. Enjoy. :-)

**Chapter 5  
**

**Truths the Shadows Hide**

* * *

It was a truth she barely admitted to herself and would certainly never have uttered aloud, but when Merlin had first dragged a wide-eyed street urchin across Camelot’s threshold and proclaimed the boy his new apprentice, Morgana had found herself unexpectedly jealous of her successor. The unwelcome feeling had nothing to do with Hisirdoux himself; The boy was charming, in a bumbling, everything-is-probably-on-fire-but-don’t-look-until-I’ve-put-it-out sort of way. She would have needed to be the heartless witch her brother made her out to be not to find his vibrant energy at least a little endearing; The determined enthusiasm of a stubborn child who had refused to stay down no matter how many times the world knocked his feet out from beneath him.

She knew how difficult it was for magical creatures outside the castle walls to survive. She could easily imagine what little Douxie and his familiar must have been through before Merlin had one of his rare moments of self-serving charity, and it was to her shame that she had not done more to make him feel welcome within his new home.

If she had not been stewing in her own feelings of bitter resentment, she could have encouraged that rebellious streak she knew was hiding beneath the hero worship Douxie held for his mentor. She could have been a buffer between her old teacher’s ridiculous standards and the impressionable child he had taken under his wing. Instead, she had chosen to stand back, to distance herself from her mentor’s young ward, despite the fact it had always been Merlin she was angry at.

Merlin, and her brother

Her powers had never been treated as something to be celebrated. Arthur had been afraid of her from the moment that first, fierce argument between them brought the room alive to echo her fury. Sometimes, she thought Merlin had felt the same. He called her his finest student — behind her back where she wasn’t meant to hear — yet for the duration of her apprenticeship she had always been given the impression he did not trust her. He had treated her like a fire he was trying to contain, not a flame that needed to be nurtured, and the ire she had felt over being leashed and bound by her brother’s prejudices had only grown worse when Merlin replaced her with a student he had freely chosen. A student he was all too happy to teach new spells to. Hisirdoux was not permitted to use many of the incantations he was learning, but that had not stopped the envy that had overshadowed their interactions, a weakness she had allowed to go on for far too long.

It had been petty, unworthy of the person she was trying to be, and she regretted it now. Worse still, she feared there would be no opportunity to right that wrong; That Douxie would die still believing he would never measure up in Merlin’s eyes, his only friend in the world an eccentric little dragon. She couldn’t even find the right words to comfort his distraught familiar, devastated by the truth Merlin had forced her to confirm, and the feeling of helplessness growing in her chest was slowly turning into the irresistible impulse to do _something,_ anything but sit still and await the inevitable.

They had both returned to the bedchamber in the wake of Merlin’s departure, Archie curled against the boy’s side, his head resting on his wizard’s ribs so he could both watch and feel each quiet breath. Morgana had taken one of Douxie’s cold hands in her own, a physical connection that allowed her to make sure Merlin’s stopgap solution was holding together, and perhaps offer some comfort in those moments when the reality of his condition seemed to break the peaceful respite of his slumber.

It didn’t feel like enough. All that training, all those spells, and she was still as useless as she had been years ago in the woods. Merlin would never admit as much, but she could tell he was no less frustrated. Clutching at straws and trying to will a solution into being, whilst ignoring that which she had offered like the old fool he was.

With a sigh, she reached out to gently run a hand through Douxie’s tangled locks, murmuring reproachfully to herself as she did so. “You deserve better. From both of us.”

“Do you really think it would help?” They were the first words Archie had spoken since Merlin left them both alone in the tower, and it took her a moment to follow the pattern of his thoughts.

“Yes,” she answered honestly. “The Shadow Realm is dangerous, and for every truth it might show you there are just as many falsehoods. But it is also a mirror, a reflection of our world, and what is destroyed here may still survive within its borders, particularly when dark magic is the cause.”

Archie lifted himself off his familiar’s chest, leaving just his paws resting there, to look her directly in the eye. “Is Merlin right? If you tried, could you bring back something that isn’t Douxie?”

“It is possible.” She wasn’t Merlin; She would not hide the dangers. “There are powers there that would be all too eager to escape into the mortal world. But there are ways to avoid them. The risk would be slim.”

“And if we do nothing?”

“No living creature can survive without a soul, Archie.” She made the words gentle, as if that could soften the blow. “Dark magic might keep him alive, if you could find someone willing to perform the ritual, but he would be bound to whoever’s power sustained him; A slave to their will.”

Archie fell silent, his eyes drifting back to his familiar’s pale face as he contemplated her words. “It seems we don’t really have a choice then, do we?”

“You want to try?” She was both surprised and impressed. “Even after Merlin expressly forbade it?”

“ _I_ am Douxie’s familiar, not Merlin. I looked after him for years before we came here, and that’s not going to change because some old wizard thinks he knows better.”

“Quite right.” Still, she hesitated, because Archie had been right in his earlier admonishment. “What about Douxie? You wanted the choice to be his, did you not?”

Archie was quiet for a somber moment. “Is he going to wake up again?”

“There is every chance that he will.” There was also an equal chance that he wouldn’t. She didn’t think Archie needed to hear that right now. “Merlin’s spell is holding. So long as it continues to do so he shouldn’t get any worse.”

“But he won’t get any better, either.”

“No.”

He nodded thoughtfully, his eyes never leaving his wizard’s face. “We’ve been together for a long time now, Douxie and I. I trust him with my life, and I know he feels the same way.” He drew in a long, deep breath, turning to her with a gaze that seemed to look right through her. “If we do this, then I am extending that faith to you as well, Lady Morgana. I am entrusting you, as a dragon, with what is most precious to me. Do you understand what that means?”

“I do.” Merlin be damned. She hadn’t been able to save Guinevere. She couldn’t do anything for the countless other lives Arthur had already destroyed. But she could make a difference here. She could help _someone_. “I swear to you, Archie, that I would sooner hand myself over to Arthur’s brutes than bring Douxie to any harm.”

“Alright, then.” He seemed taken aback by the vehemence of her words. “When you put it that way, there’s really no reason to delay this, is there?”

She glanced at the door, trying to guess how much time they had before Merlin returned. It didn’t really matter; He would be too late to stop them as soon as they were on the other side of the portal. With that in mind, she drew her staff out of her cloak, extending it to its full length and letting darkness overtake the white wood.

“Stay close to me,” she directed, gathering the shadows in the room to form their gateway to the other side. “I don’t know what we’ll find in there.”

There was a flash of golden light, then Archie landed on her shoulder in his feline form, claws latching onto her cloak as his tail wrapped around her neck. She exchanged a glance with him as the portal took shape; A final question. When all he did was nod, she turned and plunged them both into the unknown.

It always took a moment to adjust after the disorientation of moving from a world that made sense into the bizarre otherness of the Shadow Realm. It was a reflection of the mortal plane, that much was true, but a jumbled, shattered reflection that made little sense to those not skilled in navigating it. She had had no teacher during her first forays into its mysteries — Merlin had always been adamant in his refusal to even so much as discuss dark magic — but she had learnt from what mistakes she made during those early ventures. She knew this place as well as it was possible to know a mystery, and she recognised almost at once that something was amiss.

Amidst the tumbling rocks and endless darkness were sharp streaks of colour; Red, blue, and purple cut jagged, intertwining lines across the shadows, like someone had taken a knife to a hanging sheet in a fit of fury. They sparked with unstable energy, tears in the veil between worlds that widened and narrowed in fluctuating waves.

“Well,” Archie spoke in her ear. “This is all deeply unnerving.”

“This isn’t right,” she agreed, using one of the drifting boulders to propel them closer to the strange fissures. She could see figures moving on the other side, like peering through a fogged window. Voices and sounds reached her, their subtleties muffled by the invisible barrier. “Something terrible happened here.”

“Do you think it was the Arcane Order?” Crouched low on her neck, Archie peered distrustfully at the strange manifestation of magic. “Is it because of what they did to Douxie?”

“I don’t know.” She had never seen anything like it before. For the first time in years, she found herself uneasy within the boundaries of her favoured domain. “Let’s just find Douxie. We can worry about all of this once he is safe.”

Archie murmured his agreement, and she closed her eyes in concentration, honing in on Hisirdoux’s unique magical signature. To her bewilderment, she found her attention drawn in a dozen different directions, none of them providing a strong enough resonance to give her a definitive path by which to travel. She felt as though she was shouting into the void, echoes warping the answer, so it seemed as though she were searching for many instead of one.

Drawing her attention back inward, she waited for that dizzying duality to fade, narrowing her search as she pictured the room she had left from; The bed and the boy within it. Without looking, she felt the world shift around her, and when she opened her eyes she was standing within those four walls again, albeit a version that was bare of colour and furnishings both. The only object in the chamber was a black staff, held aloft by a jagged piece of ice that carved its way upwards like a weathered mountain peak, tapering to razor-thin fingers that curled around the weapon’s handle. The staff’s focussing stone — a cyan jewel that had no doubt once been its crowning glory — was shattered down the middle, molten veins marking a spiralling pattern where it had fractured. The broken shards had not fallen, drifting around the largest fragment still inset in the staff, tethered to their origin by thin, intertwining threads of green and purple.

Crouched on her shoulder, Archie voiced his unease, “What is that?”

“It looks like a wizard’s staff....” she answered the familiar hesitantly, carefully crossing the space between them and the strange pedestal. Nothing happened as she drew near, or as she reached out to gently prod one of the shards with the tip of her finger.It moved as if they were under water, drifting away from her slowly until it reached the end of its tether and was tugged in another direction.

Emboldened, she took one of the pieces in her hand and pressed it back into its rightful place. The world shuddered the moment the sliver clicked into position, the darkness rising, growing, and descending upon them like a wave. She raised her staff too late; It crashed over them, forces that she could not see tugging them in a multitude of directions at once.

She was whipped about like a dry leaf in a fearsome gale, her eyes alighting on a glimpse of their quarry for only a second before they were scattered once more. Snatches of conversation assailed her, no more than three or five words at a time, happiness mingled with anger and twisted with grief. Gritting her teeth, she locked her fingers about the staff in her hands, stoking her outrage, her fury at the ones responsible for this. The emotion grew from glowing embers into a blazing inferno; With the force of that anger, she imposed her will on the shadows around them, commanding the world to a halt with a mental shout.

It obeyed with a suddenness that had her staggering in place, Archie digging his claws in as he threw his weight against her own to stop her pitching down the dark abyss that opened up before her feet. She reeled backwards, sitting abruptly and taking a moment to regain her breath before glancing about their new surroundings.

They had emerged in a crumbling replica of the castle courtyard, the cobblestones beneath her feet cracked with age and neglect. Weeds nudged their way upwards through every crook and cranny they could find, stretching like ropes across the black void that had torn the ground asunder, forming a tangled web of floating islands. The towers that usually stood, proud and shining overhead, were broken and drifting in the emptiness of the Shadow Realm, the same ruptures she had seen upon their entry having wreaked their havoc here as well. There were whispers on the air, a slow chant that could only be magic, and a shiver ran down her spine.

The sensation of eyes upon her back prompted her to glance over her shoulder, finding nothing but the churning tempest from which they had emerged.

“What now?” Archie asked, readjusting his glasses as he peered at their surroundings with open distrust. Morgana rose, trying to appear more confident then she felt as she lifted her eyes to Merlin’s tower. It was still intact, unlike the rest of the keep, and there was a light shining forth from its windows.

Crouching, she shoved off the cracked cobblestones beneath her feet, bounding her way up and over the shattered battlements to land on the narrow walkway that led to the Master Wizard’s study. There was another of the rifts in the air beside her, slowly devouring crumbling stone, what was solid and immovable in the material world turning to dust as it was swept away. She turned her back on the disconcerting sight, treading carefully towards the workshop door. It resisted her first attempt to enter, refusing to budge as she threw her weight against it. She was forced to take a step back, raising her hand and letting her magic slam it open.

The room inside had been overtaken. Not by magic or the strange fissures outside, but a bright and verdant network of vines that bound the entire room together. They were everywhere; Climbing the walls, crisscrossing the floor, creeping across the ceiling. Even those she had snapped off to get inside were already reforming, stretching across the entrance to bar the way out.

Or the way in.

The central table was missing, she noted, as she stepped further inside, as were all the other doors and windows. A layer of frost dusted every surface, yet the stonework beneath the greenery was blackened. It looked as though a terrible fire had swept through the room, ashes still drifting lazily within the contained space. They settled on the floor, atop the the vines snaking their way across the stones, and the boy lying curled on his side in the centre of it all.

“Douxie?” Archie leapt from her shoulder, shifting into his winged form to glide to his familiar’s side. He tested the creepers wrapped about his wizard with his paw; They neither tightened nor loosened their grip, and Archie turned back to the boy they held. “Douxie, can you hear me?”

The young wizard didn’t stir. As she drew nearer, Morgana realised he was clutching something in his hands. A white box, gilded in gold, that she had seen countless times in Merlin’s hands, though she had never been permitted to know its mysteries herself.

“The time map...”

Carefully, she lowered herself beside the boy and his familiar. Something crunched beneath her boots as she did so; Shards of a dark green gemstone she did not recognise. The pieces neither exploded nor started to glow upon being crushed underfoot, so she dismissed them, reaching out to ease the enchanted box from Douxie’s limp fingers. It lit up as soon as she opened it, the soft glow bright amidst the room’s heavy darkness, flickering images dancing by too quickly for her to understand what she was seeing.

It froze locked on a likeness of her own face, twisted in rage. She glanced at Archie, the familiar looking as deeply unsettled as she felt. Before either of them could give voice to their thoughts, the image cupped in her hands expanded, and the room around them disappeared in the blink of an eye.

There was no furious maelstrom this time, nor even the darkness that one could reasonably expect within a place named for the shadows. Instead, she found herself floating within a pale dome of light, surrounded by a myriad of moving images. They drifted around her in a slow rotation, pausing just long enough to offer her a tantalising glimpse of their contents before moving on.

Most made little sense to her: A blurred, barely there impression of calloused but gentle hands, the touch familiar even if the heavy weight that settled about a too small wrist was not; A terrible noise, blind panic, flames, and a moonless night that turned every strange shape into a monster; A world that was too big for the child scampering through it, trying to avoid being trampled whilst diving for dropped crusts amidst the dirt; Pain, blood, and a deep, wrenching sense of loneliness; A dark corner, lit by the dimmest of glows, and a strange rumbling noise that sparked enough curiosity to crawl out of hiding.

It was not until the pictures became clearer, not until she started to see surroundings that she recognised and a little black cat darting hither and thither, that she realised what she was looking at. These, the more recent memories, were much less distorted, and yet at the same time there was a strange overlap of events, as though two different versions were unfolding at the same time. She watched, drawn in by the surreal experience of seeing herself through another’s eyes; Her many quarrels with her brother and her teacher alike revealed in vivid detail before her. There was some measure of guilt in the realisation of just how often Douxie had played a silent witness to such conflicts, standing forgotten in the background as his elders argued back and forth.

That thought was recognised and forgotten in almost the same heartbeat, because the images had not stopped. The present day had come and gone and she was looking now at things that had not happened. That _could not_ have happened. Wariness growing in the back of her mind, she floated forward slowly, reaching out to touch one of the false recollections. The colours warped, forming a vice that locked around her wrist, and she and Archie were both wrenched right through the mirage.

She staggered, the ground beneath her feet uneven and covered with long grass that snared about her ankles. There was a thick, unnatural mist obscuring her vision — or was it smoke? — vague sounds of battle, voices she recognised and some she did not. She thought she saw Arthur, the light of Excalibur burning bright, and... and...

She froze, horror closing around her throat like a vice as she beheld herself, staff raised in fury as she cast magic _at her own brother_. She saw Douxie, running, hand outstretched to intervene though he must have known he was too far away. The spell in her palm and Excalibur’s edge collided in a surge of golden light that grew and grew until all of the world was washed away in a burst of energy that consumed them all.


	6. All Around Me Are Familiar Places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgana and Archie find more than they bargained for in the Shadow Realm's hidden corners. Douxie is having the worst day in nine hundred years of history worth of bad days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: In which we fudge Shadow Realm rules and everyone is traumatized.

**Chapter 6  
**

**All Around Me Are Familiar Places  
**

* * *

She stumbled into a bookshelf with a cry of denial still lingering on her lips, a half a dozen volumes toppling to the floor along with some sort of ornamental statue that shattered on the impact. They were no longer in the study, a soft rug beneath her feet, and the glowing vines now a curling pattern on the floral motif that adorned the walls. The colours here were less faded, the shadows less deep. To her left, what had probably once been a gentle fire for warmth was currently a growing inferno escaping its hearth, creeping up the wall as it blackened the painting that hung above it.

“Douxie?” Focussed more on the room’s occupant than its furnishings, Archie trotted to where his familiar was kneeling in the centre of the room, a stark sense of grief in the words he whispered to the time map’s heedlessly flickering colours.

“I tried to fix it. I _tried_.”

Banishing her own disquiet to the back of her mind, Morgana followed Archie to crouch before the young wizard, her eyes catching on the illusions rising and falling within the strange little device in flashes of red and blue. She saw herself and Arthur, at peace and at odds. She saw their battle on the clifftop, her victory swiftly becoming her end. She saw the somber march back to Camelot, and she saw another scene altogether. A pale, faded alternative, where the fight had started in Merlin’s tower and it had been her old master, not her brother, who drove her out of Camelot.

None of it made sense, and none of it mattered right now. It wasn’t why she was here. She was here to save a soul someone had torn to shreds and left to be taunted by what he considered to be his greatest failures, and that was what she was going to do, irrespective of the dread taking root in the back of her mind. Tentatively, she laid her hand on a bent shoulder, prompting the boy to raise his head.

“I’m sorry.” Hisirdoux’s voice cracked, colour flooding his form as her hand settled into place so she could clearly see his pained expression. “I tried to stop you, but I was too late. You weren’t supposed to die.”

She recoiled as though she had been struck, only to snatch her hand out again as he began to fade before her eyes. He solidified the moment she made contact, and she released the breath she had been holding, acutely aware of the fact she really had no idea what she was doing. She hadn’t studied Shadow Magic for the purpose of tormenting souls, and she certainly had no idea how to undo someone’s else attempt to accomplish the same. All she could do was trust her instincts, and hope she didn’t make this worse.

“Maybe we should stop,” Archie began hesitantly, clambering back onto her shoulder as he watched his familiar return to his stricken whispering. “This is—”

“ _No_.” She turned on him, something fierce and determined drowning out the fear in the back of her mind. “I can feel him. This is real. We can’t leave him like this.”

“But, that vision...”

It wasn’t a vision. Impossible as it was, they had stumbled into a memory. A memory that hadn’t happened yet, but had left a mark on Hisirdoux’s soul that was strong enough to endure in this realm. There had to be others. More of these preserved flashes of time that would hold the answers to the questions burning in the back of her mind, as well as the key to Hisirdoux’s salvation.

“We need to keep going.”

She laid her hands over the top of the time map, closing it and locking the churning images inside. It glowed as the lid sealed, the runes on Douxie’s bracelet coming alight as the box dematerialised in a bright flash. He stared blankly at his empty hands when it was gone as she waited to be certain nothing more would happen. When the world didn’t shatter around them, she reached out to pull him to his feet, careful to keep a firm grip on his arm as she paused to look about the room.

At first glance there was nothing to see. It was a library of some sort, a good deal tidier than Merlin normally kept his own. Random trinkets and paintings interspersed the numerous volumes lining the shelves, and there were glass cases in a neat row beneath the frost covered windows. The only odd thing was the fire slowly consuming one wall, and the thick, decorated tome standing on a pedestal all of its own.

She frowned. That certainly hadn’t been there a moment before. Making sure she never lost her hold on Douxie, she crossed the room to examine the large book. She could feel the magic rising off it before she had even drawn near, a clear indication of what she was looking at. This was a grimoire. This was a great wizard’s legacy... and all of his secrets.

Curiosity swelling, she reached to open it.

Douxie objected.

Vehemently.

“ _No_.” He yanked against her grip, trying to take a step back. She didn’t let him, keeping a tight hold on his wrist. “No, please. Not again.”

She didn’t need to guess the reason for his resistance. The Shadow Realm fed most strongly on negative emotions; Grief, loss, pain. The memories that were the most powerful here would not be the echoes of happier times. With the sight of her own death still seared into the back of her mind, she could easily imagine what they would be walking into next.

“You have to, Douxie.” It felt cruel, but the fire was still spreading, insidiously creeping outwards to start on the nearest of the bookshelves, working its way around the vines that resisted its touch. She didn’t have time to be kind. “It’s the only way.”

He didn’t listen, devolving into wild flailing as he tried to free himself from her grip. She braced herself against his efforts, hooking her fingers beneath the cover of the book and throwing it open.

The smell of old trees and damp earth assaulted her senses, the taint of dark magic dangerously strong for a fleeting moment. It faded as soon as she recognised it, replaced with the no less disturbing scent of spilt blood, and the lingering, electric feel of dissipating, powerful magic.

“I can fix this!” Douxie’s voice was frantic this time as he knelt beside an indistinct shadow, one hand running through his hair as he held the other before him, palm up in a gesture of helplessness. “I—I can fix this.” He lowered his left arm, desperately cycling through the runes on his bracelet. “I can—I, I…”

“It’s Merlin.”

Archie spoke the words numbly, a strange expression on his face when she glanced at him. When she looked back the image had crystallised, coming into focus so sharply it took her breath away. Her old master lay sprawled upon the grassy ground, bleeding out as his apprentice tried to conjure up a miracle. 

She found herself stepping forward slowly, deliberately ignoring the dying Master Wizard as she knelt down, reaching across and intercepting Merlin’s ghostly hand to close her own, very solid fingers about Hisirdoux’s vambrace. The illusion shook briefly, the dying wizard fading away, leaving her staring directly into the devastation Merlin’s death would leave behind.

“I can fix this,” the boy whispered the same mantra again, a promise and a plea. “I can _fix_ this.”

“You don’t need to.” Memory or not, this hadn’t happened yet. “He’s not dead.”

The panicked words slowed to a stop, the eyes that met her own exhausted, reflecting a weariness that made her chest ache in sympathy.

“Not yet,” he answered her. “None of this has happened yet. Not you, not Merlin, not the end of the world.”

“What are you talking about, Douxie?” Archie’s question, as gentle as it was concerned, snapped the young wizard’s attention away from Morgana to rest on the feline familiar still seated on her shoulder. His eyes widened, and he started to pull away from her.

“No. No, no, _no_. Not you too.”

“Hisirdoux...” She reached for him, but he lurched away, his left hand glowing blue as he raised it. She braced herself for a spell, only to find herself wholly unprepared when the ground beneath her feet opened up and dragged her down into a pool of pale, blue light.

She plunged through empty space, her fall ending with a violent jolt that had her teeth slamming together and every bone in her body screaming in protest. She found herself standing in another room when the light faded and her vision cleared. The walls were an off-white; What little she could see of them beneath the various colourful drawings and sketches that had been plastered haphazardly across their surface. There were pictures as well, moving portraits that portrayed faces she didn’t recognise, a looping series of movements that repeated as they ended. It was a lot, yet not quite enough to hide the cracks, though she rather doubted the real world equivalent of this room housed glimpses into the abyss in its walls.

The vines this time were harder to see, lost amidst the chaotic clutter of a space that was well lived in. After a few moments of searching she found them, curled like gentle fingers around the edges of a strange looking lute that held pride of place atop a three-legged pedestal. It was glowing gently, the cyan light familiar and distinctive, and she turned at once in search of Douxie.

She found him curled atop the unmade bed that took up a good half of the space in the room, pressed against the far wall, his knees drawn up to his chest and his head buried in his arms, shaking quietly in place. At his feet, glowing with a light that pulsed softly, was Merlin’s staff.

She approached slowly to settle on the bed beside him, ignoring the strange creak it emitted when she did so. With careful hands, she lifted the staff and held it out as an offering, waiting the long moments it took for him to raise his head. He met her gaze only briefly, dropping his to the precious object she held, not moving to take it.

“This isn’t real.”

“No,” she agreed softly. “It’s not. But the only way out of here is to put all the pieces back together, Douxie. Even the ones that hurt.”

He smiled through the tears — brave boy — and answered her in a voice that only shook slightly. “At least those are easy to find.”

He reached out, wrapping his fingers around the staff and lifting it from her hands. The emerald that had been its master’s pride and joy shattered the moment he did so, the handle turning to dust as a swirling cloud of glowing, green smoke rose from the remains and briefly enveloped the young wizard.

It faded as quickly as it had appeared. Douxie exhaled shakily, then accepted the hand that she offered, allowing her to help him to his feet for the second time. They stood together amidst a wafting cloud of smoke, the flames that had thus far been absent from the illusion gnawing at the walls and the images that hung upon them. The moving portraits had shifted, the people who had been smiling before now battle worn and weary, a thin layer of ice forming along the edges of the frames. The lute glowed brighter in response, its pale light warring against the shadows pressing down on them all.

“Shall we continue?”

Archie’s voice was steady, deliberately pitched to be calming. Morgana waited for Douxie’s silent nod, unwilling to force him again, and then walked him across the room to the instrument. He lifted it with care, its form shifting as he did so, and she had a brief moment to recognise the staff that had started all of this, whole and unbroken, before the illusion of safety crumbled once more. A whirlwind of colours flashed by, echoes of a wild array of emotions battering against her senses as they were flung into the midst of another memory.

They came to a standstill in the centre of a calamity; A city aflame and encased in ice all at once. It was a strange place, forged of metal and glass instead of shingle and stone, but she could spare no more than a bare glance to study their surroundings. There was fighting taking place in the streets. It looked as if the darker denizens of the magic world had all emerged at once to take their revenge, the ferocity of their attack met with the equal determination of this kingdom’s defenders. The clashing figures were indistinct, too far away for her to make out, but she understood what was happening nonetheless, and was powerless to stop it. Instead, she found herself rooted to the sidelines, Archie on her shoulder, helplessly watching disaster unfold.

“Go!”

A shadow portal opened to her left, a girl no older than Hisirdoux gesturing frantically towards the opening as she and several others ferried terrified civilians towards salvation. Battle raged all around them, spells and blades alike being flung with utter abandon, and the rescuers were too slow to see the fireball hurtling at them from behind.

It bounced off a glowing blue rune circle instead, exploding in mid-air and prompting everyone in the vicinity to duck. Hisirdoux hurtled out of the smoke so fast he staggered upon landing, his vambrace and hands aglow as he pivoted in place and threw an orb of arcane energy back in the direction he’d come from. He didn’t wait to see it land, whirling on the stunned survivors and shouting to be heard over the cacophony of battle.

“We’re out of time. _Move it_!”

The group started running again, but it was too late. Morgana sensed that much even before the ground started rumbling, erupting a second later in a deadly barrage of pointed icicles. Somebody screamed as they were impaled, the shadow portal closing as the survivors threw themselves through it with desperate abandon. They had barely had time to react to that threat before another fireball detonated amidst the newly formed field of death, splintering the ice into a thousand lethal projectiles. They flew in all directions as the flames surged across the battlefield; A violent wave consuming all in its path.

Morgana saw Douxie raise both his hands, fingers aglow, but the shield he was casting did not form around him, and she could only watch in horror as he vanished within the inferno.

When the smoke cleared it left an eerie stillness in its wake. So far as she could tell, there were only two sides to this battle, and that spell had consumed many of its caster’s allies as well. An accident, or a callous disregard for the lives they were using? The question was hardly the most pressing right now, and Morgana unwittingly released a sigh of relief as Douxie rose, coughing and swaying but still _alive_ , from amidst the wreckage. He was still regaining his bearings when the ice lance flashed through the air, and an unmistakable, winged shadow swooped out of the sky to intercept it.

“Douxie!” The first of the flying projectiles shattered in dragon’s fire, but the Archie of this memory had missed the second, and it struck him mid-flight. He dropped like a stone to crash amidst the debris and lie deathly still. 

“Arch!” Heedless of the shards slicing through unprotected skin, Hisirdoux scrambled to his familiar’s side. “No. No. No, no, _no_!”

“And so our little game comes to an end.” A small, floating figure clad in ragged black emerged from the mist, smiling as he twirled the staff in his hands. Douxie was too slow to turn, ice flaring about his wrists like shackles to yank him back to the ground even as he fought to stand. “It was fun whilst it lasted.”

“We told you you would die for this.” A second figure snapped into place in a whirlwind of flame; Morgana could feel the heat against her cheeks despite not being a part of the scene herself. “You should have run when you had the chance.”

Someone was screaming in the distance as the fire wizard stalked closer, their staff extended and glowing. Hisirdoux paid no heed, his eyes fixed on Archie’s limp form. Something _cracked_ , a ripple of arcane power that sent an electric jolt up her spine as the shackles holding Douxie in place abruptly shattered.

Reacting to the impending threat, the second figure moved with sudden urgency to slam their staff against the young wizard’s chest. “Not _this_ time.”

The boy started to scream, the power he had called on dissipating as the spell took hold. Morgana tried to move, to intervene, and found herself locked in place.

“A pity you shan’t live long enough to see what you have wrought.” Watching with morbid fascination, the smaller of the two lifted his eyes. For a brief moment, he seemed to be smiling at the interlopers standing witness in frozen horror. “Merlin would have been so disappointed...”

“You can’t have him!” Amidst the red and blue that had overtaken the battlefield, a surge of pale green light flooded the scene. Thin, glowing lines moved in spiralling patterns across the ground, rising in the form of woven vines to wrap themselves about Hisirdoux’s writhing body as a third being stepped into the frame. She held her hand aloft, her golden eyes glowing with unveiled fury that overshadowed her tiny frame. “I won’t let you!”

Whatever she had done, it had granted Douxie reprieve enough to try to shout at her,though it came out as more of a whisper, nothing but horror in his shaking voice. “Nari, _no_. Run!”

The ice wizard lifted his staff, preparing to lash out as his fiery companion renewed their assault with a fierce snarl. The sorceress raised her other hand in the same heartbeat. From the opposite side, the young shadow witch stumbled out of the wreckage, her eyes turning black as she hurled her own magic into the fray.

The combination of spells collided in an explosion of chaotic magic that consumed the entire battlefield, reality itself bending beneath the force of the implosion. Morgana felt what was coming, and had just enough time to wrap her own magic around Douxie and drag him with them as both she and her dragon companion were thrust out of the memory.

It wasn’t until her back struck the wall that she realised they had been ejected from the Shadow Realm altogether. She barely had time to figure out which way was up and hurriedly right herself before the room came alight with magic, Merlin’s carefully organised books scattering in all directions before a wild force seeking an enemy and finding none. Hisirdoux shot upright amidst the chaos, flinging himself out of the bed and staggering across the room to lean against the far wall, gasping for breath like a drowning man.

“Douxie!” Archie pelted to the boy’s side, lifting a paw to rest against his familiar’s leg. “Douxie, are you alright?”

“J—just a minute, Arch.”

Morgana paused halfway towards the pair, startled by the coherency of that response. She jumped when the door behind her swung open, Merlin storming in with staff in hand, only to pull himself up short as he drank in the disastrous scene. His eyes darted from Morgana, to Archie, and finally settled on Hisirdoux, watching as the boy wrestled his roiling magic back under control.

When the last sparks of cyan light flickered out, the apprentice turned his back to the wall and slid to the floor with a light thump, letting out a low groan. “ _Ow_. That settles it; Bellroc is officially the worst.”

“Bellroc?” Merlin barked in confusion, whilst Morgana and Archie exchanged an awkward glance. “What on earth have you three been _doing_?”

“Master?” Douxie dropped his hand from his chest to rest on his familiar’s head, blinking owlishly at the fuming Master Wizard. “Oh, blast it. I’m not dead again, am I? Zoe will be furious.”

Merlin’s face went through a series of peculiar contortions. “What do you mean, ‘dead again’?”

“Uh...” Hisirdoux froze, looking to Archie for help, only to find his familiar looking just as aghast as the rest of the room. “Right, um...”

“Never mind.” Rolling his eyes, Merlin crossed the remaining space between them. “Can you stand?”

A pale tinge of hysteria to his voice, Douxie shook his head. “I’d really rather not, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Then I suppose we will have this conversation here.”

Glancing about the floor, Merlin waved a hand to restack some of the books that had been scattered in the latest magical mishap, settling himself atop the pile once he was done. After a moment of incredulous staring, Morgana followed suit, and Archie pointedly climbed into his wizard’s lap. Effectively surrounded, Hisirdoux glanced between the three of them uneasily for a moment, then let his head fall back against the wall with a painful sounding thud.

“Probably should have seen that coming, huh?”

“Probably,” Archie said agreeably, masking his worry with wry humour.

“This isn’t an interrogation,” Morgana interjected, not flinching when Douxie’s gaze snapped to meet her own. “We are all just worried.”

“Yeah.” He looked down at the dragon in his lap, swallowing, before lifting his head to offer them a watery smile. “It is good to see you again. All of you. Even if you are just an elaborate hallucination.”

“And why would you think that?” Merlin demanded, scowl darkening by the second.

“Well, you’re both dead, for a start.”

To his credit, Merlin took that in his stride. “I can assure you that we are no more dead than you are, Hisirdoux.”

“That’s kind of the part that’s worrying me, Master.”

“Douxie.” She’d never intended to hide what they’d done from Merlin, so she didn’t hesitate to use what she’d seen now with him sitting right beside her. “It _was_ real, wasn’t it? All of that... it actually happened. You lived through it.”

The look he gave her was haunted, an answer in and of itself, and she watched him open and close his mouth a few times in complete silence. “Then, this is...?”

“You are in Camelot,” she supplied. “We are all alive and well at present.”

He swallowed, face twisting into an uneasy grimace. “I’m... not sure if that’s better or worse.”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Merlin suggested, eyeing Morgana with clear suspicion and a good measure of irritation at being left out of the loop.

“It’s a long story,” Hisirdoux warned, then shrugged slightly. “And it started, Master, the first time you decided to take a nap...”


	7. There and Back Again (Again)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Douxie ignores the rules of time travel. Archie is in over his head, but that's never stopped him from helping his familiar before, and it's not going to stop him now.

**Chapter 7  
**

**There and Back Again (Again)  
**

* * *

From the moment he had decided that the child offering him breadcrumbs in an alleyway was his, Archibald had known that he would be responsible for the life of his wizard. Douxie had been far too young to fend for himself, already half starved when Archie found him, unaware that the meagre magic he was using to keep himself warm was only further draining his body’s empty reserves. If chance hadn’t led him down that alleyway when it had... If Douxie hadn’t been enamoured enough with his feline form to come out of hiding... If they had missed each other that night... If Fate hadn’t conspired to put them both exactly where they needed to be when they needed to be there, then the bright young boy he had grown so deeply fond of over the years would have died; Alone and forgotten by a world that didn’t deserve him.

He hadn’t been ready for the responsibility. A green familiar and a child sorcerer were a disaster in the making, or so his father had told him. The great ‘Charlemagne the Devourer’ had then proceeded to bury him in a mountain of books ostensibly meant to teach him how to properly mind his wizard, because it was ‘too late to back out now, Archie my boy, you’re stuck with the thing’. Refusing to introduce his familiar to his father after the fact might have been a little petty, but he was a dragon; They were known for that sort of thing.

And he had managed just fine, thank you very much. Admittedly, there had been missteps — neither of them were the most proficient in their respective areas of expertise just yet, and Douxie had the worst timing when it came to magical accidents — but they had learned and grown through every narrowly averted disaster. He could still clearly remember nights spent together around a campfire lit by his dragon’s breath, pouring over the smudged and torn pages of some rescued spellbook or scroll, listening to Douxie uncertainly sound out the words as he patiently corrected his familiar’s pronunciation and filled in what blanks he could with knowledge gleaned from his father’s library.

It hadn’t been much, but they’d made do, and every peril faced had been worth it to see the beaming smile on his boy’s face as the cyan light danced about his fingers in another mastered spell.

And there had been perils. Many of them. His boy was gifted in a world where it was rapidly becoming dangerous to be so, hunted by those who wished to destroy his kind as well as those who wished to use them. Even the few other casters they met always seemed just a little too eager when they realised what the young wizard was capable of, particularly given his age, to the point where Archie had started steering them away from such individuals. There was conflict brewing between the mortal and the magical realms; He wasn’t going to let his familiar get mixed up in it if he could help it. Douxie would not be either side’s weapon, not so long as Archie had a say, and shadows take anyone who thought differently.

He hadn’t counted on Camelot, or Merlin, or on Douxie becoming the Master Wizard’s apprentice. It had been hard to decide whether they were safer here or out there, and he’d known it would be more difficult to leave the longer they stayed. Not because of Merlin’s instruction — whilst it _was_ valuable, Douxie had learned just as many spells with Archie’s help as he had the Master Wizard’s, if a lot less smoothly — but because the young wizard had found something here that he was desperate to hold onto, heedless of the fact his proximity to Merlin placed him right in the very middle of the burgeoning war.

Archie, on the other hand, had been all too aware of the brand new dangers they were courting in the place of the old. There wasn’t anything Merlin could offer them that would convince him to stay if it came to a choice between the Master Wizard’s patronage and Douxie’s well-being; The problem lay in the fact he was no longer sure Douxie would leave with him if he asked. He’d told himself he could find a way to persuade his familiar if he had to. He’d convinced himself that they could still vanish if the need arose. It was only now that he realised how naïve that had been.

Listening to Douxie speak — soft and cracked and so very _tired —_ he understood there had never been a choice. A destiny like Douxie’s would follow him wherever he went, and Archie was left feeling rather small and inadequate in its shadow.

How was he supposed to protect his familiar from _this_?

Nine centuries. Nine centuries he had not yet lived and already their weight pressed upon his feline shoulders. He sat utterly still and listened as Douxie abbreviated a life lived throughout the ages into a paltry few paragraphs, trying to offer comfort for tragedies he had not yet seen. He was sure there was a lot Hisirdoux was leaving out — how could there not be? — and the worst came at the very end.

Eyes fixed on a distant point well beyond any part of Merlin’s rooms, Douxie stumbled his way through a strange tale of twisted time and the swift collapse of all that they now called home. He didn’t take the time to sugarcoat things, and Archie watched Morgana’s knuckles turn white and Merlin’s brow dip deep in consternation as both Master Wizards heard the tale of Camelot’s decline, Morgana’s betrayal, and the pitched battle for Killahead Bridge.

If only it had ended there.

There was a tremor in the hand resting against his back as Douxie pressed on, and Archie braced himself for darker things to come. The loss of another friend, corrupted by foul magic. A desperate, mad, _Douxie_ plan that had come so close to working, if only his own shapeshifting had held for a few minutes longer. A fight that could never be fair, and a loss his familiar struggled to put into words even now. 

It was Morgana who reached out when Douxie trailed off into silence. Merlin was sitting, rigid and unseeing, whilst his former student took the hand not currently resting on Archie’s back and gave it an encouraging squeeze. She followed it up with a crooked smile when Douxie raised his head, and that seemed to be enough to grant the young wizard the strength to continue.

“After that, Arch and I went after the Genesis Seals.” That snapped Merlin’s attention back to the present. Douxie didn’t seem to notice, reciting his life’s story like he was reading it from a dusty tome. “Everyone else was supposed to stay out of sight, safe, until we got back. But the Order found them. They took Nari and the others prisoner. To barter for the Seals.”

“Which, of course, you did not give them.”

Douxie winced. “Well, actually...”

“ _Hisirdoux_!”

“It’s fine. It was fine, I mean. They wasted a bunch of time chasing their own tails whilst I got Nari and the others out, then I kept them busy whilst Morgana and Claire took care of Arthur and Jim.”

“Just like that, hmm?” Merlin had gone from aghast to incredulous in the space of a single breath. “And where did _dying_ come into it, I wonder?”

“Yes. Right.” It was less of a wince and more of a complete sidestep this time. “Clearly I’m _not_ dead, so I don’t think we need to bother with all of that. The important thing is I promised I would keep Nari safe from the Order. And I did. I kept Nari safe. The Order just went after everyone else.”

Archie had heard enough to realise what a terrible amount of sense that made. If their plan was to wipe the entire world clean and start over again, why would the Order hesitate to destroy a few mortal lives along the way? All they were doing was getting a head start on the apocalypse. After Douxie had already risked so much to save his friends, they must have known he wouldn’t stay in hiding whilst innocents paid the price.

“I wasn’t ready.” He could hear the self-reproach in those words, the guilt, and pressed himself harder against the hand nestled in his fur. “They used me against you. They used Claire and the others against me. I should have known they wouldn’t stop there. Why bother searching the planet for two people when you can just start picking off everyone they’ve ever known, one by one, and wait for them to arrive to stop you?”

Merlin pressed his lips together in a grim line. “The Order set a trap.”

“And I walked into it with my eyes open. I knew what was waiting for me in there. I wasn’t going to leave anyone else in their hands. We got a lot of people out before it all went horribly wrong.”

“Because those people didn’t matter to Skrael and Bellroc.” Merlin sounded odd, though Archie couldn’t quite place his paw on the why. “They were after you.”

“They were after Nari,” Douxie corrected. “I just happened to be in the way.”

Merlin dismissed that with a sharp flick of his hand. “They didn’t lay a trap for Nari, Hisirdoux; Easy enough to hunt her down after the fact. The Order was eliminating a threat.”

Douxie smiled, not looking the slightest bit amused. “Finally made an impression, and it was on the worst possible people. Figures.”

“I don’t understand.” Morgana might have gleaned her answers from all the madness they had seen during their journey into the Shadow Realm; Archie had not. “How did you end up here, like this?”

Douxie shuddered slightly, offering a stilted explanation. “When I went back for her, that first time, Nari told me the Order would rip my soul to pieces. She wasn’t... it wasn’t an exaggeration. They tried, and she got in the way.” One of his hands moved unconsciously to rest at his chest as he continued, an edge of fond frustration to his words. “She wasn’t supposed to be there. We _agreed_ she would stay away. But she tried to pull me out, and so did Claire, and something… something went wrong. I don’t know. I wasn’t really in the best position to pay attention. Maybe it’s that whole Guardian of the Eternal Forest thing, or Bellroc’s spell messing with Nari’s, or Claire’s shadow magic, or a combination of all of those things. Either way, I’m here, apparently. Again.”

“But not in body,” Merlin pointed out, shifting his weight back slightly as he lifted a hand to rub his chin. “She sent your _soul_ back in time.”

“If it’s any consolation, Master, I don’t think she was trying to.”

Merlin harrumphed loudly, but didn’t press his apprentice for further answers, turning his steely gaze onto Morgana instead. “And your thoughts?”

To her credit, Morgana didn’t shy away from admitting what they had both done. “The Shadow Realm is in disarray. There are windows, glimpses through time scattered everywhere. I think Douxie is right; The combination of all that magic in one place reacted in a way nobody could have predicted, the result being, well, _this_.”

Archie huffed slightly, “It sounds to me like all of us are just guessing at this point.”

This time, the smile reached Douxie’s eyes. “Welcome to the world of wizardry, Arch.”

“Indeed,” Merlin interrupted dryly. “Unfortunately, we are going to need a little more than educated guessing if we are going to set this right. We need to get you back to where you belong, sooner rather than later.”

“You want to send him back?” Archie whirled on the Master Wizard. “You can’t! They’ll just finish what they started.”

“Obviously, this is going to take some thought.” Merlin waved away his outrage. “We can hardly go knocking on the Arcane Order’s door and hope the Nari of this time is willing to tell us what _she_ thinks happened.” 

“What about the Arcane Order of his time?” Morgana pressed. “Archie is right. If we just return Douxie to where — when — he came from, we are practically handing the world over to them.”

“Oh, and I suppose you think we should rewrite all of history to prevent this apocalyptic future? A future it seems you played a rather large part in, might I add.”

“ _Master_.”

“Don’t ‘Master’ me, Hisirdoux. It is the truth, and she knows it.”

“Yes, it is the truth.” Douxie was angry, the words running out fast and clipped. “She turned against Arthur to protect someone who doesn’t have a bad bone in his body, because you wouldn’t take _five seconds_ to listen to me when I told you there was another way. She died for that mistake, the Arcane Order brought her back, and the rest is just the sort of bloody mess you can expect when the Order is involved. Arthur wasn’t any better once they had their hands on him. He’s the reason you’re not around in the future right now to help stop the world from ending. So maybe, just maybe, we could skip the part where we go around deciding who is to blame for what, and just figure out how to make sure the arcane apocalypse doesn’t actually happen.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed, except for the fact that Douxie’s breathing had taken on a strained note again. Archie glanced up at his familiar in time to catch the grimace that flashed across his face, and instantly lifted himself up to place his paws gently against the boy’s chest.

“Douxie? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” He raised his hands to press their heels against his eyes, exhaling shakily. “Sorry, yes, I’m fine. It’s just… been a day. Or nine centuries in reverse. Or whatever you call it when your spirit decides to skip backwards in time.”

“You’re babbling, Doux.”

“I have been known to do that from time to time. It’s a thing. Ask Zoe. Or… don’t, I guess, seeing as you can’t.”

“I believe the apocalypse in nine hundred years can wait a few more hours,” Morgana interjected gently before his familiar’s rambling could get any worse. “We all need time to mull this over, and you need to rest.”

“Yes.” Unexpectedly, Merlin agreed without missing a beat. “Morgana and Archibald’s quest into the Shadow Realm might have helped stabilise your aura for now, but I expect there is still some lingering damage.”

“I’m not dead.” The cheer might have been forced, but Archie could not deny his wizard was trying. “That’s got to count for something, right?”

“It counts for a great deal, Douxie,” he answered with all the sincerity he could put into words. “But you’re still going to bed.”


	8. And After the Apocalypse, it's Nap Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Douxie receives a much needed reprieve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Happy holidays, everyone. I hope you have all had an enjoyable time catching up with family/friends as you are able and that you are all staying safe.
> 
> This particular chapter had no less than six different versions. Not different edits, six entirely different 2,000-3,000 word scenes that I went back and forth between like a ping pong ball before deciding we needed a low-action option and using the original. Hopefully the rest of that stuff will be worked in somewhere else, or it's just 10,000 words or so of change that can sit in the drafts portion and stare at me accusingly as it never sees the light of day. 
> 
> I also just want to give everyone a heads up that I am on vacation for the next few weeks. That will either mean I get extra chapters done in my newfound free time, or I will be swallowed by the void that is catching up on everything you can't do when working and there will be no writing done at all. Just in case I disappear off the planet for a few weeks. ;-)

**Chapter 8  
**

**And After the Apocalypse, it's Nap Time  
**

* * *

Douxie awoke and immediately regretted doing so. He had apparently offended every single muscle in his body before tumbling into bed the night before, and there was not an inch of him that did not hurt with a vengeance. He hadn’t felt this terrible since… well,the last time he died, he supposed, which was really not something one should be making a habit out of. At least he’d found somewhere decent to sleep. If he hurt this much after lying on a soft mattress all night, he could only imagine how painful today would have been with a couch spring or three digging into his back.

“Douxie?” A careful weight settled on his stomach. “Are you awake?”

“No.” He croaked and winced. Even his throat was sore. “That seems like a terrible idea right now.”

Archie chuckled softly, settling more firmly into place. “At least your sense of humour is intact.”

“I wasn’t joking.” Squinting his eyes open, he glared half-heartedly into Archie’s inescapable gaze. There was something there that made him pause, the intimate knowledge of centuries spent together, and he swallowed painfully before asking. “How long?”

“About a day,” the dragon’s response was subdued, thick with concern. “You’ve been drifting in and out. I think you had the old man worried.”

For a terrifying moment, that sentence was entirely incomprehensible to the young wizard. The memories reasserted themselves with a vengeance before he could blankly ask his familiar what he was talking about, and he felt his blood run cold as his hand crept unwittingly to rest against his chest, breath escaping him in a soft ‘oh’.

“How do you feel?” Archie moved his paws to rest atop his wizard’s hand. “Any pain at all?”

“No, I...” His body hurt, yes, like he’d gone three rounds with the enchanted broom and then tripped down the stairs. That wasn’t what Archie meant, though. “I’m alright. A little shaky maybe, but then I guess I haven’t eaten, so—”

“Please, don’t.” He stopped abruptly at hearing the reproach in those words, Archie’s round eyes looking at him with a wounded expression. “Don’t make light. You scared me, Douxie. I didn’t know what was happening or how to help.”

“I’m sorry.” An apology probably wasn’t what Archie was looking for. The words were habitual enough he said them anyway, reaching to lay both hands against the dragon’s back in way of comfort. “I really am alright, though, I promise.

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Master!” In retrospect, sitting bolt upright in response to Merlin’s entrance into the room probably wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done. Not the stupidest, either, but it definitely ranked up there. “Oooh, buckets.”

Hands, not paws, grabbed a hold of him before he could join the room in its wild spinning, and he spent a good few seconds being absurdly grateful he hadn’t eaten anything. He very much doubted Merlin would have appreciated his stomach’s reaction to the movement otherwise.

“Careful, Hisirdoux!” the Master Wizard admonished, easing him back to rest against the wall in a semi-upright position. Archie had taken the opportunity to stack pillows behind him, and settled in his lap again as soon as he was stable. Merlin’s hands lingered a little longer than they needed to, the fleeting touch of gentle magic preceding his withdrawal.

“You never do things the easy way, do you?” He turned away before Douxie could figure out whether he was supposed to be apologising for the trouble, returning almost immediately with a chalice that was pressed firmly into his unsteady hands. “Sip this. _Slowly_. We’ll talk when you’re done.”

For once, it seemed easier to simply do as he was told. Under Archie’s watchful eye, he took a mouthful of the cup’s contents, realising as soon as it passed his lips that it was more than just water. There was a sweet aftertaste, followed almost at once by the easing of the more immediate aches and pains. Unable to hold back a sigh of relief, he settled a little further into the pillows, finishing the rest of the potion whilst watching his master rifle through the various tomes spread across his desk.

The Master Wizard was mumbling discontentedly to himself, a sure sign of his agitation. Cringing inwardly at the thought of the lecture that was surely brewing, he was almost tempted to pretend he was still drinking. Unfortunately, Merlin’s gaze landed on him again as soon as he’d taken the last sip, his master bustling back to the bedside to loom in judgement. 

Archie must have felt him tensing, for he glanced up at Merlin in irritation. “Must you?” 

Rolling his eyes, Merlin liberated the empty cup from Douxie’s lax fingers, setting it aside before pulling up a chair that made his presence a little less intimidating. Douxie caught himself fidgeting with his empty hands, a bad habit he really should have broken after all this time, and swiftly moved to stroke Archie’s back instead.

“So…” Best to get it over and done with. This wasn’t the Merlin who had learned to trust him, for better or for worse. “How much trouble am I in, then?”

“Trouble?” Merlin gave him an incredulous look. “You just spent two days on your deathbed, and another completely unresponsive as your own magic tried to piece you back together. Given the circumstances, I hardly think a lecture from me is going to help.”

“It might.” He probably shouldn’t have said that. Too late to take it back now. “You never know.”

“I will keep that in mind.” The words were so dry you could have used them as tinder. “How are you feeling? And _don’t_ spin me the same story you just did your dragon friend. It may have been nine hundred years for you, but you are still as terrible a liar as you ever were.”

“Yes, well, some people might consider that a good thing.”

“ _Hisirdoux_.”

He hadn’t realised until now how much he had missed his old master. They had had their disagreements, polarising views that had only grown worse after Merlin’s slumber and all those years on his own to fend for himself. The old wizard was still the closest thing he had to a father, and his absence had been felt in every successive catastrophe that had followed his death.

“I feel like I let you down.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and he didn’t really have any choice from there but to continue. “You trusted me to protect Nari, but _she’s_ the one who ended up saving me. I don’t even know if the rest of my friends made it out alive. Skrael and Bellroc have probably already opened the Seals in the future, and by the time I figure out how to get back there everyone I know will already be gone.” 

“Hmm.” That was all he got for a long moment, which was neither particularly helpful nor reassuring. “Given up already, have you?”

“What? No! I mean, of course I want to fix it, I just don’t see _how_.”

“Good.” Merlin nodded as though a decision had been reached. “Once we have exhausted all possible avenues of action and find we cannot undo this calamity of yours, then, and only then, will we talk about your failures. For now, I suggest you focus on regaining your strength.”

“Really?” Zoe would have slapped him upside the head if she’d found him fishing for criticism, but he was finding it hard to believe Merlin had nothing to say on the matter. Merlin _always_ had something to say. “That’s it?”

“Hisirdoux...” Merlin sighed, lifting a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. It dawned on his apprentice that the Master Wizard actually looked tired. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen that before, battles with Morgana and centuries of slumber notwithstanding. Before he could open his mouth to express his concern, Merlin had reached out in a rare display to lay a hand on his shoulder. “What has happened has happened. After what you went through to end up here, I hardly think there is anything I can add that you haven’t already figured out for yourself. The important thing is to decide what we are going to do next. For that, we need to get you back on your feet.”

The urge was there to close the distance between them. It had been a terrible last few days, on top of a terrible last few months, and the worn down, exhausted part of him just wanted to reclaim the comfort of that brief embrace they had shared whilst lingering on the edge of the afterlife. But this wasn’t that Merlin; No matter how much Douxie might have wished otherwise, his master was gone. He was just borrowing the body and the life of his younger self, ruining his own childhood in new and exciting ways. He really hoped he didn’t remember any of this later. At the rate he was going, he’d be lucky if he wasn’t a raving lunatic by the time he made it back to the future.

“Alright.” Realising Merlin was still awaiting a verbal response, he stuffed that urge and the distracting lump in his throat back down as far as they would go. “What’s the plan, then?”

“Rest.” Merlin squeezed his shoulder before moving his hand away. “Recover. The damage the Arcane Order caused has been halted in its tracks for now, but the cracks remain. You will need to be careful not to overexert yourself, and extremely cautious in how you use your magic. Morgana has already managed one miracle; I will not risk needing another.”

“Where _is_ Morgana?” He was almost afraid to ask. In hindsight, telling the pair of them as much as he had about the future was probably not the wisest thing he could have done in his situation. He was humble enough to admit that. At the time — shock thrumming through his veins and fresh from the adrenaline of being torn apart and put back together — he hadn’t really been in a good frame of mind for rational decision making. That was no excuse for dropping the sorceress in the deep end, though. Not when he knew how Merlin could be. “I owe her a ‘thank you’ for saving my life.”

“She has not been cast into the dungeon, if that is what you are afraid of.” Merlin gave him a knowing look. “Seeing the future is a dangerous business, and anyone who acts on that knowledge without proper forethought is a fool. I will admit you caught me off guard — the time map has never so much as hinted at Morgana’s fate — but she has nothing to fear from me until she chooses to make herself a threat.”

“Good.” It was a weight off his shoulders, if only one of the smallest burdens resting there. “Because I have a feeling we are going to need her help.”

“As do I,” Merlin agreed. “We will discuss it further when I return. I have a meeting with Arthur I have already delayed too long. The servants will bring you up something to eat in a little while. Do _not_ leave the tower without either myself or Morgana accompanying you. Do you understand?”

“But, Master—”

“ _Don’t_ , Hisirdoux.” It was not the customary response, stern and reinforced by the expression on the elder wizard’s face. He flinched slightly in spite of himself; Merlin was not yet done. “Arthur is still furious over what happened. It is best you stay well out of sight until things have calmed down. We also have no way of knowing if any of the Arcane Order accompanied you on your little trip through time. If that conglomeration of magic sent you back, they might have followed, and they will be hunting you. Stay in the tower. That is an order.”

He didn’t wait for an acknowledgement before making his exit, closing the door firmly behind him and plunging the room into a brief silence.

Archie broke it with a sigh. “I suspect he didn’t mean that to sound quite as angry as it did. You gave us all a fright.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” At least Archie had never minded being used as a living, breathing teddy bear. He let himself indulge in that weakness for a moment, closing his eyes as he held the familiar as tightly as was comfortable for them both. “I don’t know how you put up with me.”

He was expecting the usual, quick response. What he got instead was a subdued, “Douxie…”

Surprised, he opened his eyes to meet his familiar’s gaze. He knew that look, and he wasn’t standing for it. “It wasn’t your fault, Arch.”

“I saw what happened.” Archie shook his head. “You were holding your own until I went and got careless. I’m your familiar, I’m supposed to help you, not nearly get you killed.”

“We’re supposed to help each other, Arch. If that’s the way we’re measuring it, I let you down first.”

“Douxie—”

“No. It wasn’t your fault. You’re not allowed to think that it is.”

The dragon huffed at him, not looking wholly convinced, but at least a little less guilty. That transformed into alarm a moment later when Douxie started peeling back the blanket.

“What are you doing?”

Freezing halfway through the motion, he blinked at his familiar. “Um... Getting out of bed?” 

“Merlin said—”

“Not to leave the tower. And I’m not. I just want to get up.”

“The last time you did that you destroyed Merlin’s stock of potions,” Archie moved aside to let him rise, but not without comment. “And the time before you nearly cracked your skull open whilst rearranging all the furniture in our room.”

He touched his head on instinct, frowning when his fingers brushed against the healing lump there. He had been hoping Archie was exaggerating. “Extenuating circumstances?”

“Such as your soul being scattered across time?” Archie dropped to the floor as Douxie sat up on his own, watching him warily as he rested a hand against the bedpost and eased himself slowly to his feet. “I suppose I can allow it. You’re going to have to come up with a better excuse than that for all the other messes you caused, though.”

“Fuzzbuckets. What _else_ did I do?” His legs were slightly wobbly, but they held. He transferred his hand from the bed to the wall before cautiously taking a step, Archie shadowing him.

“I’m not sure you really want to know.”

He managed another three steps without falling on his face, though it was taking more effort than he felt it should. “That sounds bad.”

“Somewhat.” Satisfied he was steady enough to remain upright, Archie took to the air so he could open the door into the workshop, saving Douxie the effort of juggling himself and the latch. “At least you didn’t accidentally turn anyone into a toad, I suppose.”

Belatedly catching on to the teasing note in his familiar’s voice, Douxie cast the smug dragon a dark glare. “You’re an ass, Arch.”

Archie chuckled quietly, and Douxie finished his unsteady march across the bedchamber in silence, slipping into the workshop and sitting on the nearest pile of books he could find.

“I told you you should have stayed in bed,” Archie grumbled, settling at his feet. “It’s not like we have anywhere we need to be.”

That was true, technically. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that sitting still was a mistake. That he should be doing something, anything besides lazing about his master’s quarters all day. Unfortunately, Merlin wasn’t likely to set him loose when he couldn’t even make it across a room without feeling like he needed another nap, so whatever it was would have to wait for now.

Glancing about the workshop in an effort to look more alert than he really was, he froze as he caught sight of the worn lute propped in the corner. Archie followed his gaze, not needing an uttered word to dart across the room and retrieve it for him. His voice only wobbled slightly as he thanked his familiar, waiting for Archie to shift forms and settle into place on his lap before positioning the instrument and letting his fingers wander across the strings.

He was a little rusty; It was a long time since he’d owned a lute, more familiar now with the instruments of the 21st Century than the 12th, but the weight was comforting nonetheless, and it only took a few minutes for his fingers to remember the old patterns. The melody filled the otherwise quiet space of Merlin’s workshop, Archie adding a gentle rumble to what was a softer tune than he would normally have chosen. It seemed right for this moment; A much needed chance to pause and regain his breath before diving back into the fray.


	9. For Want of a Wizard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Guardians of Arcadia grapple with the loss of yet another Master Wizard.
> 
> Zoe and Claire hatch a new plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I return! 
> 
> A week later than I had planned, but I digress. 
> 
> Turns out I spent my holiday actually working on some of my original pieces, which means this little project got set aside in favour of works that have been neglected for far longer. I intend to try and keep working on those stories going forward, so updates for this fic may not be quite as regular. 
> 
> We'll still get there in the end, though. ;-)
> 
> Enjoy,  
> TTC

**Chapter 9  
**

**For Want of a Wizard  
**

* * *

Like all wizards, Claire had been born with her abilities. They had always been a part of her; A silent power thrumming beneath the surface without her ever having been aware of it. It was strange to think that, were it not for Jim becoming the Trollhunter and pulling her into the wonderful world of trolls and magic, she might never have realised what she was capable of. She had pulled off her fair share of miracles since then, and it hadn’t even been a full year since the first time she’d used the Shadow Staff. Part of that was definitely luck — she’d been given a headstart thanks to Morgana’s attempt to steal her body, and the Shadow Staff itself had seemed to guide her in its own way long before that — but the rest had all been instinctual. Magic just felt right in the same way that being on stage had always come naturally to her, though it wasn’t until she met Douxie and the hedge wizards of HexTech that she realised how rare that kind of intuitive casting was.

All of them were her seniors in age and experience to varying degrees, though Zoe and Douxie easily outstripped their peers on both counts. She’d been given the impression when she asked that there was an unhappy reason so few wizards of their generation were still wandering the world today. She hadn’t asked again, more than capable of filling in the blanks even without a front row seat to history, and not wanting to waste what precious little of Douxie’s time she was able to claim for herself.

It was a calculated risk, making the trip between Arcadia and the Master Wizard’s new hideout, even infrequently and via the Shadow Realm. Unfortunately, they hadn’t been given much of a choice. The Arcane Order was still at large and Claire needed training beyond that which a hedge wizard could provide; Even a centuries old, very skilled hedge wizard. Douxie might not have been able to use Shadow Magic himself, but he’d learned the majority of his own skill the same way she had — through a sometimes painful process of trial and error — and was more than capable of steering her away from what might cause trouble. He was also an adept translator of the book she had taken from Morgana’s rooms, and she went to him for explanations even after he and Zoe had each set time aside to help her learn to read the tome’s contents herself. She found it easier to follow his directions than try and comprehend the words on the page, and with time set firmly against them the sooner she could learn to do more than open portals and create illusions the better.

Technically speaking, she _had_ done more than that when she had fought to save Jim, but it had all been wild, desperate, and _exhausting_. She needed to learn how to do those things deliberately, and without pouring more of her energy into each spell than she could safely get away with. It was frustratingly difficult sometimes, even with Douxie’s relentless encouragement and stout belief that she was capable of anything she put her mind to. He’d laughed when she’d admitted as much, freely pointing out she’d picked up a whole lot considering she hadn’t yet had her magic for a fraction of the time Morgana had. She’d wanted to argue, not because she didn’t think he was being honest, but because for a moment her mind had completely tripped over the short passage of time that had passed since this whole adventure started. 

They had accomplished so much in such a short amount of time. The Eternal Night. Gunmar. Morgana. The search for the new Heartstone. The return of the Arcane Order. Jim and Toby had been at it only a few months longer than she had, yet, somehow, between them they had been involved in saving the world no less than three times. Surely, _surely_ those adventures could not have taken place over a single year. But they had, and Douxie’s gentle amusement at her impatience had reminded her that her chosen teacher had spent _nine centuries_ learning his craft and had still only just earned his staff.

That had put things into perspective.

So had watching Arcadia burn.

She was not a stranger to battle anymore. Even if she didn’t count the various, small skirmishes she’d taken part in there had been the Eternal Night and the Battle of Killahead Bridge to introduce her to the horrors of this millennia long war. Young though she might be, she knew what it was to stare death in the face. To stand on a pitched battlefield knowing you were outnumbered and outmatched and choosing to fight anyway. But even Gunmar had only wanted to conquer the human world — the Arcane Order wanted to burn it all to the ground — and it was there, standing in the midst of the calamity they had caused, that she most keenly felt her lack of experience.

Even without the soulless husk of Arthur to support them, the Arcane Order had them outmatched. They weren’t invincible — Deya had landed a hit on Bellroc at Killahead, and apparently caused some serious damage — but they had replaced their lost pawns with an army formed of what seemed to be every magical creature they could hold beneath their sway. She didn’t even recognise all of those swarming the streets, despite the hours she had spent pouring over Blinky’s bestiaries. There were shadow mephets, nyarlagroths, goblins, and hellheetis alongside countless others. She thought she saw a gruesome briefly out of the corner of her eye, and the stars above were blotted out by the winged outline of at least three stalklings.

It was madness, utter and complete, made all the worse by the innocent bystanders caught in the midst of it all. The three of them had been given the unenviable task of rescuing as many people from the heart of the battlefield as they could. Claire’s shadow portals were the only reliable way to transport people safely in and out, with neither the airship nor the Hextech wizards able to risk getting close to the Arcane Order themselves. That was Douxie’s role, and Claire hadn’t been able to argue when he declined her offer for assistance. Her skills were needed elsewhere, and she’d already tested her strength against the Orders and been found wanting. Douxie had promised he would manage. He’d smiled and gripped her shoulder and she’d let him walk away like a fool.

“Claire?”

The sky was spinning above her, half obscured by smoke as her mind wandered in aimless recollections, dredging up recriminations for a mistake she did not yet realise she had made.

“Claire! Wake up!”

The smoke burned the back of her throat as she unwittingly inhaled it. There was a ringing in her ears, loud and distracting and muffling Jim’s voice as he shook her urgently.

“Are you alright? Claire?”

“I’m fine,” she said, or thought she said. Her own voice sounded like a whisper, her hearing still as distorted as her vision. She coughed, her bruised sides protesting the motion, her lungs screaming for fresh air. “I’m fine. What—”

If Jim answered her she didn’t catch his reply, but he did help her off her back into a sitting position. His face was blackened with soot and streaked with blood from a dozen small cuts. No doubt she looked just as battered. Judging by the rubble surrounding them, half a building had come down with Bellroc’s last fireball. Still dizzy, she leaned against Jim a moment, trying to get her bearings, trying to gather her wits because now was _not_ the time to lose focus.

The ringing in her ears was fading, replaced by what sounded like screams. Not sounded like, she realised, _was_. The smoke had parted behind them, so that when she and Jim whirled to face the source of that dreadful sound they were both given a clear view of the battlefield once more. Of her teacher — her _friend_ —on his knees at the Arcane Order’s mercy.

“No!”

‘ _Magic_ is _emotion_ ’, Douxie had told her, something she had always known but never fully understood. Not until she was forced to embrace her fear or be rendered helpless once again. It wasn’t fear she was feeling when she staggered upright, bleeding and still choking on smoke; It was absolute, white-hot fury, and her magic reacted accordingly. The shadows took on a will of their own as soon as they left her hand, the energy torn from her fingers to join the violent maelstrom their battle had created. What she had meant to be an escape route turned instead into a whirlpool of darkness that dragged anyone and anything in the vicinity into its heart.

It should have calmed once they reached the other side, like diving beneath the surface of a pool in the middle of a storm. Unfortunately, she had unwittingly brought the Arcane Order along for the ride, and found herself emerging into chaos. Magic roared around her; Raw, unbridled, and dangerous. She couldn’t see anything, the clashing forces spinning her in circles and blinding her to both friend and foe. She could hear screams, voices she recognised, and a slow, swelling chant that settled sinisterly at the back of her mind, reeking of ill intent.

It was terrifying, but so was everything else they had faced today, and she wasn’t about to be the reason they didn’t make it out of this alive.

Giving up on righting herself, ignoring the chips of ice slicing through bare skin and the flames nipping at the edges of her hair, she let the whirlwind carry her where it would, pouring all of her focus, all of her energy, into locating her friends. She wasn’t Nari, she couldn’t simply sense the soul of any living thing, but she could picture the one’s she cared about clearly in her mind, imagine the shadows wrapping about them all in a protective blanket, and yank them to safety.

The landing was rough. They emerged from too high and crashed against the floor in a tangle of limbs and weapons. Claire had the breath knocked out of her when Krel landed on her back, a stream of what she was fairly certain were Akaridion curse words falling from his lips as they disentangled. She paid no attention, crawling on hands and knees towards the two among them who weren’t moving. Archie was closer, and she paused beside the small dragon, fingers seeking and finding the shard of ice that had felled him. She could feel the dark magic that infused it, an enchantment too complex for her to try and dispel on her own. She tugged the shard free instead, her fear easing a little when it did not resist, and watched with bated breath as the frost that had spread from its impact slowly began to melt. Archie’s wing twitched as the invisible layer crumbled away, and she nearly choked on her relief, hastily shoving the familiar into Jim’s arms as she turned to Douxie.

“Teach?”

He’d fallen face down without making any attempt to catch himself. She could still hear the screams Bellroc had been ringing out of him when they’d done... whatever it was they’d done. With a shaking hand, she reached to turn him over. There was no resistance; He rolled limply onto his back, skin pallid and face still, blood streaking the side of his face from a nasty gash on his temple. His chest had been branded with a strange rune that looked like it had been burnt directly into his skin, still bright in places, like hot embers in a dying fire.

She placed her fingers at his throat, searching for some sign of life as she pleaded under her breath, “Come on, Doux. Don’t do this again.”

There was no pulse that she could find. She tried to convince herself not to panic. This had happened before and he’d been _fine_ , despite the fact the fall alone should have killed him. She just had to trust he could do it again. A minute ticked by, and then another, agonisingly slow and all too fast at the same time.

“He’s breathing, right?” Toby was behind her, Jim on her other side, still carefully cradling Archie. “Tell me he’s breathing.”

“I don’t…” she moved her hand to his chest, careful of the brand as she felt for the rise and fall that would indicate life. “I don’t think he is.”

“I could not hold him.” It was a fragile whisper, and Claire looked up to find Nari crouched on Douxie’s other side, staring at her own hands as if they had betrayed her. “I could not... I was not strong enough.”

“What did they _do_?”

Nari startled, lowering her hands as she lifted her eyes to meet Claire’s frantic gaze. “They have destroyed his soul. I tried to stop the spell, to hold him together, but I could not... I could not...”

“No.” She shook her head, denial rising. “No. There has to be a way to fix this. I can—”

“Guys!” The exasperated shout came from the other end of the dark cavern. Claire looked up to see Steve running towards them, Blinky a stride behind. “What is taking so long? We gotta move!”

The gyres. Of course. Their escape route. Their means of ferrying an entire town of people out of danger as quickly as possible. It had been her job to get everyone here safely, and she had failed.

“Great Gronka Morka!” Blinky had reached them, shoving his way through the circle they had unwittingly formed. “What happened?”

“No time for that,” Jim interrupted, moving Archie’s weight to one arm so he could reach down and pull Claire to her feet. “Steve’s right. We’ve got to move before the Order realises where we’ve gone.”

“But—!”

“We’ll figure something out,” he promised, stepping aside to let AAARRRGGHH!!! collect their fallen friend. “Just not here. Come on.”

Stumbling, she let herself be pulled along. The battle had exhausted them all, she could see it in the faces of those running alongside her, but they couldn’t stop yet. Douxie had been clear on that. They needed to get out and away, or the Order would just keep on coming. If they could. She didn’t know if Skrael or Bellroc could control the Shadow Realm now that Morgana was gone. No doubt they were powerful enough to find a way even if the magic was not in their repertoire, but leaving them trapped within its boundaries might buy a little more time.

Jim was leaning on her almost as much as she was leaning on him when they reached the gyre, his stamina not what it had once been as a half troll. Their sorry group piled on one after the other as Blinky wrestled with the controls. AAARRRGGHH!!! braced himself in the corner as they took off, cradling Douxie’s limp form gently to his chest. Claire found herself watching him as she swayed back and forth with the gyre’s sharp turns, still waiting on a miracle that wasn’t coming. Nari huddled at the large troll’s feet, her arms wrapped around herself as silent tears rolled down her cheeks. She looked devastated; Claire hadn’t yet moved past numb.

The station was crowded when they arrived, filled to overflowing with frightened Arcadians and equally unsettled trolls. These people had faced the Eternal Night and Alien invasion, only to be left shell shocked by an ancient order of wizards marching in without warning to burn their town to the ground. She could hear Dictatious shouting somewhere amidst the crowd, trying to ferry people to where they were meant to be as if he could actually see what was going on. Her parents were somewhere in that mess, as was her brother. Douxie had been adamant they get their families to safety before joining the fight. He’d sworn he could handle the Order for as long as they needed.

He’d lied.

The guilt was an old companion, a heavy weight bearing down on her shoulders as she disembarked. They drew attention. Human or troll, people knew Jim, and AAARRRGGHH!!! was much too large to pass unnoticed. Even if very few of those present knew who Douxie really was, they seemed to recognise that something terrible had happened. The crowd parted without prompting to let them pass, battered bodies shuffling out of the way and then watching them hasten by with curious eyes.

All except one.

“Zoe...”

Claire trailed off before she had even begun, the words dying on her tongue. The hedge wizard had clearly raced to reach them, her chest still heaving from the dead sprint she had just stumbled out of, dust in her hair and rips in her shirt that had not been there the last time they had spoken. There was a wild look in her eyes that had nothing to do with her battle-worn state, and Claire stepped aside, tugging Jim with her, as Zoe staggered forward. Static energy crackled behind her as she walked right up to AAARRRGGHH!!! and his precious burden, the large troll crouching lower to allow her near.

Without missing a beat, she leant across Douxie’s prone form to grab a hold of his singed shirt. “Hisirdoux Casperan, you are _not_ going to pull this nonsense on me again!”

The answer was, predictably, silence. Zoe waited a beat longer, then her eyes flashed down to the burning rune. “What is this?”

“The Arcane Order…” Nari answered meekly. “Bellroc turned his soul to ashes.”

Zoe went a shade paler, her voice sharpening to a verbal razor. “His _soul_?”

“I tried to stop them.” There was an apology and regret both in those words. “I failed. I am sorry.”

“No.” Zoe’s hand turned into a fist, Douxie shirt still clutched within her fingers. “No, that’s not good enough. I haven’t spent centuries helping Archie keep this idiot alive for it to end like this. You were a part of the Order, you must know a way to fix this. They brought Morgana back. _Twice_.”

“Morgana’s soul was still intact,” Nari explained, shrinking a little more with each word. “Even if I could still sense his spirit on this plane, I cannot complete the ritual alone.”

“You’re not alone,” Claire interrupted, earning the attention of both her fellow spellcasters. “You have us, Nari, there must be something we can do.” The tiny sorceress looked up at her helplessly, her lips parted without words, and Claire felt her own determination wavering. “Please.”

“Come.” Laying a supportive hand on hers and Jim’s shoulders, Blinky started them moving again. “We should find somewhere quieter to discuss this.”

Suddenly hyper aware of all the eyes on them, Claire let herself be led, finding and grasping Jim’s hand tightly in her own. They left the crowded chamber, passing by the glowing doorway where the new Heartstone rested; A triumph she had all but forgotten in the wake of all that had followed. Holding aside a thick curtain of fabric, Blinky ushered them all within the comparative privacy of his new library, then hastened to clear room on the table for AAARRRGGHH!!! to set their fallen comrade down.

The large troll did so with care, folding Douxie’s hands across his stomach. It reminded Claire entirely too much of Merlin’s tomb, and she tore her gaze away to watch Jim settle Archie into place beside his wizard. The familiar was still under the influence of whatever dark magic had been locked within that icy shard, though the paralysis seemed to have eased somewhat, his eyes no longer staring blankly into the distance. He still wasn’t conscious, and Claire thought that was probably a mercy right now.

“What the _hell_ happened out there?” Zoe was still choosing anger over any of the other emotions she might be feeling, standing rigid with her arms folded as she searched the faces of those gathered in the room.

“We were too slow.” Jim spoke, and Claire tried not to flinch. _She_ had been too slow. If she had been able to evacuate the town faster, Douxie wouldn’t have been trapped facing the Order alone. They’d been overrun, yes, by mephits and stalklings and all manner of dark creatures, but that was no excuse. She should have found a way. “Skrael hit Archie, and then...”

He trailed off. Scowling, Zoe moved to check the familiar herself, Nari clambering up to perch atop the table beside Douxie’s head as she did so. The small sorceress reached out as though intending to touch him, only to snatch her hand back at the last second with a guilty flinch. “This is my fault.”

“It’s nobody’s fault.” There were tears pricking at the corner of her eyes; She refused to let them fall. “The Arcane Order did this, and we are going to make sure they don’t get away with it.”

She didn’t care how. Enough was enough. She wasn’t going to lose anyone else to these monsters. Never, _ever_ again.

“He can’t be dead.” She hadn’t realised Steve had followed them until he started speaking. “Don’t wizards like, turn to ash or something when they die?”

“That would require his soul departing to the next realm.” Blinky, one of only three in the room with the authority to comment, offered his knowledge. “Without that, I fear our wizard friend may remain like this forever.”

“What? Really?” Steve blinked, giving their fallen friend a sidelong look. “That’s… that’s just creepy.”

“One of the many mysteries of magic,” Blinky shrugged, turning to Jim. “I must go and make sure everyone is getting settled in alright. You’ll call, if you need anything?”

“Of course.” Jim nodded. “Can you let mom know we’re here?”

“Right away, Master Jim.” Blinky bustled out, AAARRRGGHH!!! shuffling behind him, and the room was plunged back into a heavy silence.

“What about Archie?” Claire couldn’t stand it, and spoke in spite of her shaking voice, “Is he going to be okay?”

“I don’t know what this enchantment is,” Zoe admitted, running her hands over the familiar with a gentle care that was at odds with the fury still radiating off her. “Curses aren’t exactly my specialty, but one of the others might be able to help.”

“I will go ask.” As eager as any of them to have something to do, Krel bolted from the room.

“And Douxie?” Toby pressed. “Is there some sort of wizard guidebook on soul reconstruction too? Some sort of relic we need to find? Some spooky, dark lair we’ve gotta sneak inside? Oh, oh! Maybe Gatto has something that would help?”

“Nari?” Claire kept her eyes on the forest guardian, the only one among them who had any true understanding of the magic that had been used here. “How do we fix this?”

“I know of no magic capable of restoring a soul once it has been destroyed.” Nari shook her head, her own gaze fixated on the unmoving wizard in their midst. “There are spells, rituals that might help if a fragment had survived, but I cannot sense any part of Douxie still with us.”

“You couldn’t sense Jim either,” Claire reminded her. “But he was still there, in the Shadow Realm.”

“Then that’s where we’ll start.” Zoe made a decision, stepping away from the table to stand closer to Claire. “We are not letting it end like this.”

“You can’t go alone.” Not about to be left out, Jim added, “The Order might still be there.”

“You stuck the Arcane Order in the Shadow Realm?” Zoe gave her a look that was equal parts bemused and impressed. “Douxie really has been training you, hasn’t he? You’ll have to ask him about that nyarlagroth he stuck in Limbo one day.”

“I will,” she promised, holding that fragile thread of hope for all it was worth. “As soon as we get him back.”


End file.
